


A Victorian Age

by drakensis



Category: BattleTech: MechWarrior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-26 19:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1699655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drakensis/pseuds/drakensis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 3030, an heir was born to Hanse Davion and Melissa Steiner-Davion. Her name is Victoria Katrina Steiner-Davion and the Inner Sphere is never going to be the same again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Triad, Tharkad City, Tharkad**

**District of Donegal, Lyran Commonwealth**

**13 April 3030**

The medical suite of the Triad had attended to many crises over the centuries that it had served the Lyran court. Relatively few were as pleasant as this one and Archon Katrina Steiner was lost in memories of her own time here when she gave birth to the young blonde now lying upon the bed.

Now she sat where her husband had been, holding Melissa's hand as another generation of House Steiner fought its way into the cruel world of the Inner Sphere. The father should have been here, but harsh reality prevented it – Hanse Davion was hundreds of light years away restoring order to his Federated Suns after the strains of the Fourth Succession War. With peace only two months old between the four signatories of the ComStar negotiated peace pact, the workload remained crippling. Even though Katrina's realm had not suffered the shattering impact of a ComStar Interdiction, a complete blackout of interstellar communication in retaliation for an alleged attack upon one of the techno-mystics' compounds, her own workload was crushing.

But at least she was not months away and could be there as Melissa gave one more tremendous gasp and then slackened her grip. Alarmed, the Archon tightened her own hand and half-stood to look at her daughter's face, but the still-teenaged (if only for a two more months) mother smiled her in relief and then both Steiner women looked to where the midwife cut cleanly through the birthing cord and handed the infant over to a physician while she turned her attention to the afterbirth. An instant later there was a healthy wail from infant lungs as the baby took it's first breath.

"Was it this long for you?" Melissa gasped between breaths as her own lungs laboured to replenish themselves after the last few moments.

The Archon smiled slightly. "Even longer, dear. Your father swears it only felt like a few moments to him, but I was in labour for most of a day."

Melissa rested her head on the pillows. "If Hanse was here, I think I'd hit him for putting me through this. Not that I wasn't as keen myself at the time."

They shared a laugh, for a brief moment less mother and daughter than sisters in that sorority common to those who have suffered through motherhood's rite of passage.

"Congratulations, Lady Melissa," the physician offered, as he approached with the child in his arms, now cleaned and wrapped in a light cloth. "You have a fine, healthy daughter." Katrina helped her daughter to sit up against the head of the bed before accepting the child, red-faced, bald of any hair as yet and with pale, newborn eyes that were almost identical to those in the Archon's first memories of her daughter.

"So, are you going to tell me what you and Hanse decided on for a name?" asked Katrina, reaching over to gently touch the infant's head.

Melissa smiled and someone in the background snapped a photograph that Katrina made a mental note to obtain a copy of. "We agreed on Victoria if it was a girl," the new mother said happily.


	2. Chapter 2

**Twelfth Donegal Guards Headquarters, Trell 1**

**Tamar March, Lyran Commonwealth**

**19 October 3049**

Kommandant Victoria Steiner-Davion looked up from the analysis report she was studying when there was a light knock on her office door, pulling her attention from the after action report that the Kell Hounds had provided her with. She glanced at her reflection in the glass covering one of the photographs on her desk, carefully placed to catch the light from the office's small window, and fastened the collar of her uniform jacket before calling: "Come!"

A slender, sandy-haired man stepped into the room and snapped Victoria a quick salute. "Hauptmann Galen Cox reporting, ma'am." His blue eyes darted restlessly around the office, noting everything, but betraying nothing of his thoughts. This man would do well at Court, Victoria noted – that skill was one she'd seen courtiers practise since she was a child.

Victoria kicked against her footrest to push the chair back from her desk so she could stand and return his salute, uncomfortably aware that her head didn't even reach the Hauptmann's shoulder. _Get over it, Vicky,_  she told herself.  _It's not the size of the dog..._  "Kommandant Victoria Steiner-Davion. What can I do for you, Hauptmann?" she asked with a pleasant smile, gesturing for him to take the seat opposite her.

Cox didn't move to take the seat. "I'm reporting for duty, Kommandant. I am your aide."

"I don't recall it being policy for the AFFC to assign aides to battalion commanders," Victoria said, fighting the urge to narrow her eyes menacingly. "And I think Leftenant-General Hawksworth would have mentioned it if this was a tradition of the Donegal Guards. Which suggests that this is something specific to me. Or am I being paranoid here?"

"No ma'am. Begging your pardon, but the Kommandant is in a unique position."

Victoria took a deep breath. "I see. Hauptmann, I believe that we should talk frankly. Please take a seat." She waited until Cox complied, taking the time to settle her temper as she also sat down, glad that it put their faces on something closer to a level. "Thank you. Now, rather than let any misunderstandings fester here, please could you explain why it is that you have been assigned to me as my aide."

Cox leant forwards. "Your highness, most of our lance commanders are just like you. They're fresh from school and they don't want to be assigned out here on the Periphery. For them this assignment is a chance to show their potential so they can win a more glamorous assignment like guarding the Draconis border or kicking around some Free Worlders." He rested his hands on the edge of the desk. "Most Leftenants are easy to straighten out. We get into an engagement with pirates or bandits or a Rasalhague raiding party and step them through the fight. If they don't freeze up or faint at the first exchange, we give them orders and they execute them. That first fight is always rough on them, and generally rougher on the men and women they command, but they survive it if they listen and do what they are told. It's sort of military Darwinism in action."

"You, on the other hand, have a battalion to command. That puts more than thirty-five MechWarriors in your hands during a battle. There'll be confusion and there'll be chaos. If you can't handle it, people will die." Cox shrugged his shoulders. "People don't want to die, so here I am."

Victoria nodded. "I see." She stretched her arms out to either side, working some out tension and then crossed them across her chest. "However, I think you've missed one key element of my question, Hauptmann. Why you? Did someone pick you out as best to take over if I lose my head out there?"

Cox shook his head. "I volunteered, ma'am. When we got the news that you were coming to take over Kommandant Sykes's battalion, lots of people started grousing. You know how it works – one guy talks to another and he talks to someone else. All of a sudden what started out as a minor irritation becomes a crisis. It's like the story of the MechWarrior who needs to borrow an actuator-wrench to make a repair on his BattleMech."

"'I don't want your damned actuator wrench anyway!'" quoted Victoria with a chuckle. "I get the picture, go on."

The Hauptmann nodded. "Anyway, I thought it was getting out of hand, so I looked up your school and service file. Scores on exams never stopped a particle beam, but yours looked good enough to deflect a few, I figured if you were going to get a chance to live up to all that potential, someone would have to cut you some slack." He sat up tall. "Galen the Knife, that's me."

 _Good analysis, keeps his head… why the hell is this guy still a Hauptmann?_  Victoria asked herself. "You might be interested to know, Mr. Cox, that your analysis of why I should have an aide is much like the one that I presented to my father and my first cousin when I asked to be assigned as a sergeant, incognito if need be, for my first tour of duty. It's how the Federated Suns academies used to handle their graduates and I happen to think it was a good idea. I didn't get my way then and while I don't honestly think I will crack up, I doubt I'll get my way if I try to brush you off, either."

"You know how the electronic shuffle can be," Cox admitted. "Orders have been known to get lost if it's best for the unit that they are."

Victoria nodded her head. "Since there are valid reasons for your assignment, as opposed some of the possibilities I was more concerned about, I don't see that I have any reason to complain then. However, Mr Cox, being my aide will be no easy ride. In addition to making sure I don't act like some hot-headed back-country samurai from across the border – or worse, an old-fashioned social general – you're going to be catching the splatter for whatever social obligations descend upon me due to my parentage. However, if we're very very lucky then we might get some actual work done in between those."

Gathering up the documentation on her desk, she slipped it into a folder. "For example, these are the reports – and some quite wild speculations – based around the raiders that the Kell Hounds ran into back in August. At the most conservative estimates, they were equipped with Star League era equipment and they had some very good MechWarriors. My cousin Phelan didn't make it back and it wasn't all that far from here." Victoria offered Cox the folder. "Take a look, then come back to me with some recommendations for training to face that sort of capability. Even if we don't wind up facing them, the DCMS have been developing the same capabilities."

Cox accepted the file. "If you don't mind my asking, Kommandant, what possibilities did concern you about my appointment as your aide?"

"Other the possibility that someone blueblooded – up to and including my mother, who was married younger than I am now – thought you would be an acceptable or even desirable consort for the primary heir to the Federated Commonwealth?"

Victoria was pleased to see a somewhat panicked expression flit across her new aide's face.  _You just wait until the first time I draft you as my escort to a society dinner, Hauptmann Cox,_  she thought. _I may have accepted you as my aide, but that doesn't mean I'm letting you off the hook just yet._

* * *

**Trell 1**

**Tamar March, Lyran Commonwealth**

**13 April 3050**

"Badger Deuce Seven to all Badger Units. Unidentified BattleMech battalion approaching! This is not a drill, they are not – repeat, not - the Red Brigade!"

Badger Deuce Seven, piloting a  _Commando_  deployed out to the flanks as a screening element, was only a kilometer out. The warning across Second Battalion's tactical net snapped Victoria Steiner-Davion's focus from the route of her command and to the wider situation as the secondary screens of her  _Victor_  showed her the last reported location for the scout. "Badger One to all Badger Units, take your weapons out of training mode," she ordered. "Badger Two, contact Den Mother for situation report. Deuce Seven, give me a situation report."

 _We aren't even in the exercise area yet,_  Victoria thought in concern as she flipped the switch that told her  _Victor_ 's computer to actually fire her weapons when she pulled the trigger, rather than tight-beaming the targeting data to the target in order for it to simulate damage.  _I wouldn't put it past the Red Brigade to spring an ambush even so, but it would be damn unlikely and Russell's shaping well as a scout. Unlikely he'd fail to identify VanLee's 'Mechs if it was them._  She was glad she'd focused on bringing the reconnaissence elements of the battalion up to scratch – whoever this was, if they got close enough without warning then the attack could be devestating. And if this wasn't an exercise…

"Deuce Seven to Badger One, I have a minimum of twenty – two-zero – BattleMechs of unfamiliar design approaching at eighty kph. Range is under three kilometers. There may be more and they appear to be carrying infantry."

"Roger that, Deuce Seven," confirmed Victoria. "Fall back upon battalion."

Galen Cox's  _Crusader_  was walking only a dozen metres away from Victoria's  _Victor_  and she could see the antenna on the head twitching as the heavy 'Mech's head turned. "Kommandant, we have trouble. I'm getting jammed – can't reach Den Mother at all. I can't even make contact with the repeater station at Chrysall Pass."

Victoria took a deep breath. "Confirmed, Hauptmann. Badger One to all Badger Units. Weapons free, I repeat, weapons free. Trey Company, make for Chrysall Pass full speed and secure our rear. Report in to Den Mother as soon as you can raise the repeater station there. Deuce Company, hold positions and prepare for incoming BattleMechs. Ace Company, form on me, we're falling back on Point Six-Seven-Three." That point was a hill overlooking the entrance to the broad, marshy valley that the battalion was marching down. "Deuce Company, be prepared to fall back once Ace Company is in position to cover us."

She turned her  _Victor_  around, the eighty ton machine stamping deep footprints in the soft earth as it turned through a short arc. The  _Crusader_  followed her, Galen's silence indicating, Victoria hoped, that he had no concerns that she was holding herself together.

"Badger Deuce One to Badger One," she heard the commander of Deuce Company report. "Deuce Seven is in sight and taking fire."

Victoria kicked her 'Mech up to full speed. There was no way that Deuce Company's ten machines (with two others detached for screening purposes) would do more than slow down at least twenty hostile 'Mechs. She had to get her command lance and Ace Company into position to provide covering fire for a withdrawal. Slightly ahead of her, she saw Badger Three – a laconic Skye native named Smeed – flip the arms of his  _Rifleman_  to bear on their rear arc. Glancing at the edge of her own holographic display she saw the first shots from Deuce Company – long range missiles arching up from an  _Archer_  and a  _Dervish_  towards the as yet invisible to her enemy.

There was a flash of light as the enemy returned fire with a PPC and Victoria turned her attention to the slope ahead of her. The leading elements of Ace company were almost at the top, already turning to bring their weapons to bear.

"What are those things?" Galen muttered as the enemy BattleMechs came into view, infantry jumping away from them on jets of fire.

Victoria's throat went dry as she saw a bird-like design that almost perfectly matched the 'Mech she'd seen in Phelan Kell's last transmission, eight months ago. "Expect those 'Mechs to engage at much longer ranges than usual," she warned. "There are reliable reports that they have Star League era lasers that can range at least as far as LRMs. Remember the simulations we ran back before Christmas." She turned her  _Victor_  again to look back, relying on it's thick armour to protect her even though the relatively short-ranged weapons could not fire back down into the valley. "Badger One to Deuce Company, fall back. We have you covered."

"Negative," retorted the voice of Deuce Two. An instant later the valley was lit by fire as the  _Dervish_  detonated, long range missiles arcing out in all directions as the medium 'Mech's ammo bins detonated. Black smoke rose from the remains and Victoria could see no parachute. "They're all over us, Badger One. The Hauptmann's down, we'll hold them as long as we can. Get out of here."

Victoria's face paled. "Pull back, Deuce. That's an order!"  _I can't leave them down there to die!_

"Goddammit, are those infantry bullet-proof?" the embattled Leftenant down in the valley complained, static rendering his voice almost unrecognisable. "Sorry, Badger One. Your transmission is breaking up."

"I know how to recognise filter-switching on a radio channel, Leftenant!" Victoria snapped. "That trick was old when Redburn pulled it on the St Andre drop."

"He's right, Kommandant," Cox's voice cut across the channel. "They're too closely engaged now to break away, not as fast as those 'Mechs are moving. We have to move now or they'll run us down as well."

Victoria saw more green-painted BattleMechs spilling down the hillside towards Deuce Company. There were at least two companies and they were still coming. "Confirmed, Leftenant. Give them hell," she grated and slammed her feet down on the pedals of her 'Mech, triggering the jump jets. Gravity slammed her back into her seat as the  _Victor_  soared up and backwards, turning in the air to land behind the hill crest. "Badger One to all Badgers, make for Chrysall Pass at best speed."

She cut her microphone for a moment. "If this is intended as a birthday present, I'd have rather had a pony."

The sixteen 'Mechs pounded down the slope, the transponders for Deuce Company blinking out as the  _Victor_  dropped out of sight of the embattled force and jamming cut off effective communication. It sent a shudder down Victoria's spine, knowing that those MechWarriors were as good as dead.  _And there's nothing I can do. Damn them!_

The retreat was painfully slow, Victoria's force limited to the slower 'Mechs such as her  _Victor_  and Galen's  _Crusader_. Twice she ordered scouts back to watch their trail for pursuit. On the second occasion, the  _Wasp_  pilot rejoined the force with his 'Mech's right arm missing, product of a long shot from an enemy Mech two ridges away.

"Badger One, this is Badger Trey One," a voice cut across the battalion channel and Victoria could hear the terse but constant flow of chatter across the net pause.

"Trey One, Badger One," she acknowledged. "Situation?"

"Negative on the pass. Repeat, negative on Chrysall Pass. The pass is in hostile hands. Probable strength is one company 'Mech and one company infantry. I sent in a scout and they tore him apart."

Victoria's eyes flicked to the topographical map. "Roger that, Trey One. Do you have any good news?"

"That was the good news, Badger One," Hauptmann Dzur reported bleakly. "The relay is still in place and Den Mother advises that they are under pressure from two battalion forces. He's ordering you back to Den asap."

 _Easier said than done,_  Victoria noted. Den – the tactical headquarters of the Twelfth Donegal Guards – was the far side of the mountains, which meant crossing Chrysall Pass. And after seeing the mess that had been made of Deuce Company, she wasn't convinced of the wisdom of trying to rush the invaders when they were holding such good defensive ground.  _Even if we succeed, we'd lose every bit of lead we have over the battalion behind us_ , she concluded.

"Badger One?"

Realising she had been thinking silently for thirty seconds, Victoria made her decision. "Understood, Trey One. Relay confirmation back to Den Mother and then make for Thunder Rift. We're going to have to risk using the caves."  _And God help us if they've picketed those as well_. "Leave a lance to watch the pass until we pass it – if the 'Mechs there move, I want to know about it."

 _God damn them_ , Victoria thought as she saw the enemy's green-painted 'Mechs come into view ahead of them.  _How can they be that fast? They'd need to be at least a third again as fast as we are to get here by the next shortest route._

"Kommandant," Galen warned.

"I see them, Badger Two," Victoria sighed. "Badger One to all Badgers, I'm not going to sugarcoat this: we're surrounded. There's a battalion strength force ahead of us and at least a company behind us."  _And since the force at Chrysall Pass overran most of Trey Company before they could link up with us, I've got effectively one reinforced company._  "So let's make this simple: the only way out of this is through the enemy battalion. So that's where we're going. Form a wedge on me."

A light appeared on her console indicating Galen had something to say on a private channel. "Kommandant, taking point here is an unnecessary risk."

"No Hauptmann. I have one of the biggest 'Mechs in the battalion and let's face it – there's probably a reason that they're making such a point of hunting us down while the rest of the regiment is just being penned up."

"With respect, Kommandant -"

"Do we have time for this?" Victoria snapped.

Galen hesitated. "I've got your back."

It was hardly possibly to push their 'Mech's faster than they were already going, but the change of purpose – from running away to charging ahead – made it feel different. A few of the lighter Mechs, capable of more speed, inched ahead slightly before falling into place. It was important that they hit the invaders at once. "Lance commanders, pick out targets," Victoria ordered.  _We need to drop some of them fast, have them start worrying about protecting themselves, not stopping us._  "Command Lance, aim for the  _Warhammer_  with  _Marauder_  arms, fourth from the right. Designate that type as  _Loki_."  _Warhammer's aren't all that well armoured, might carry through to this one._  She looked along the line of 'Mechs. "The  _Catapult_ - _Marauder_  hybrids are designated as  _Freya_ , the  _Thunderbolt_ knock-offs are designated as  _Thor_  and those light birdlegged ones are designated as  _Uller_ ," she added, picking names hastily from scandinavian mythology.

"There's another birdleg type in their second line," offered Galen. "Tall torso, blocky missile pods with arms outboard of them. Tagging it as  _Vidar_."

"I see it," Victoria confirmed. "Looks like a fire support-design. Probably not a major problem once we get amongst them – flag them as secondary targets."

And then there was no time for picking targets as the invaders slowed their 'Mechs to a leisurely lope, still moving at an angle that would delay the closing of the range, twisted their torsos and the first shots ranged out into Victoria's force. Not all of them were firing, but every 'Mech was taking fire – Victoria's  _Victor_  staggered as a cloud of missiles from the  _Freya_  descended upon her, blasting craters across her armor.

A  _Rifleman_  – not Sneed, another of them – fell forwards, a scorched mark replacing the cockpit. Someone over there was either very good, or very lucky to land a PPC shot at that long range. Only a few steps behind her  _Victor_ , Galen's  _Crusader_  seemed barely fazed by the shattered armoured plating across the 'Mech's right shin, launching a cloud of long range missiles back at the invaders.

Explosions ripped through the invaders – far too many for the relatively meagre firepower that the Donegal Guards could fire back at this range – and the green 'Mechs broke ranks in confusion, reforming to face a threat from –

"Look, up on the left slope!" shouted Sneed into his radio.

Victoria's eyes flicked to the terrain in question and saw Mechs wearing faux-DCMS markings erupting from cover, firing at the invaders from a range of barely four hundred metres as they closed in. "It's the Red Brigade!" she shouted.  _Talk about the cavalry arriving._

Then a small hunched-over 'Mech, all arms and legs with a torso that looked like the fuselage of a VTOL gunship turned and pointed both arms at General Van Lee's  _Dragon_. Victoria's eyes went wide as the 'Mech fired an incredible array of lasers directly into the heavy 'Mech's chest. The invader froze up, the infra-red display showing the massive heat radiating from the 'Mech after that alpha strike, air rippling around it, but Van Lee crashed to the floor, both arms ripped away by massive damage to the  _Dragon_ 's shoulders.

An instant later, she was relieved to hear Van Lee's voice on the radio. "This is General Van Lees to Kommandant Steiner-Davion. Get your command into the caves, we'll hold them off for you."

"General!" Victoria shouted, still closing in at sixty kph, as yet, unable to bring her weapons into range. "We've got these  _batards_  pincered. We can take them!"

Van Lee rolled his 'Mech, the  _Dragon_  apparently unable to rise, trying shake off the infantry that were bounding out from among the enemy 'Mechs, swarming over the fallen General. "That's an order, Kommandant!"

"…Yes sir." Reluctantly, Victor slowed her 'Mech. Not even "Badger One to all Badgers, halt the charge, I repeat, come to a halt. We've been ordered back to Thunder Rift."

Still at long range, the Battalion continued to take fire that few of them could reach back and return with more than half a kilometer between them and their enemies. An  _Enforcer_  was torn apart under a withering volley of missiles from one of the  _Vidar_ s as it moved forwards despite the pressure upon the invader's rear. To Victoria's pleasure, an  _Archer_  among the Red Brigade scored a deadly-accurate volley of long range missiles into the upper chest and cockpit of the 'Mech that had brought down Van Lee. Two  _Panther_ s fired PPCs into the infantry crawling over the fallen  _Dragon_ , but despite the hellish storm of lighting, the individuals continued to rip into the battered 'Mech.

"Back up, slow and steady until we're outside their range," ordered Victoria. She watched helplessly as the two light 'Mechs waded into the infantry, crushing them underfoot and in their hands. However, while some of the invaders fell, others swarmed over the  _Panther_ s, one of them almost immediately falling as the vulnerable back of its knee was torn away.

Most of Victoria's battalion didn't have jumpjets and so they had to pick their way carefully backwards. Until they were clearly out of range – and the ranges of the invaders were unguessable but long - they dared not expose their vulnerable rear armour. Victoria's  _Victor_  and the handful of exceptions bounced side to side in the rear line, trying to draw fire away by providing more obvious, but harder targets to draw fire. The  _Victor_  could afford an occasional hit, little as Victoria enjoyed them – being struck by missiles while in mid-jump tended to do nasty things to her landings - but not all of them could and one  _Phoenix Hawk_  pilot found out the hard way that the laser hits to one leg had compromised it's load bearing. Fortunately, quick reflexes let the man punch out before the cockpit was more than thirty degrees off the vertical, but there was no time for search and rescue. At that, the pilot was more fortunate than that of a  _Stinger_  that simply exploded in mid-air from a hit that Victoria never even saw.

The Red Brigade were still pressing the attack, but they were down to half-strength by the time Victoria was able to order an about face and run for Thunder Rift.

"We're not going to make it into the caves before they catch us," Galen reported grimly as they entered the Rift.

Victoria glanced at the ground. It sloped away down towards the cavern entrance, hollows in the rough, broken ground filled with water run-offs from the slopes or bone dry and ideal trenches for her 'Mechs to take advantage of. "Then we'll catch them on the reverse slope. Put their leading element down hard enough and then break contact into the caves."

Hastily she waved the tattered remains of her command into place. The valley was too wide here to effectively hold all of it, but there was a good firing position near the centre that could command much of the upper slope.

They didn't have long to wait and the moment that the enemy 'Mechs came into view over the crest of the hill, what was left of Second Battalion – twelve 'Mechs, mostly heavies that could weather the previous battering - fired into them.

By sheer chance, a single  _Loki_  was facing the front of the position and took the brunt of the firepower. Victoria and the pair of  _Hunchback_ s flanking her fired everything they had into the Mech at pointblank range. The  _Loki_  staggered as the autocannon shells tore through its armour. Victoria's shells hit within inches of those from one of the  _Hunchback_ s' and the entire right side of the chest crumpled, sending the right arm flying through the air as it was severed at the shoulder. More shells ate through the left arm, and lasers bit into the armour protecting the enemy MechWarrior. Its own fire was largely ineffective – a particle beam went wide of one of the  _Hunchbacks_  and its lasers and SRMs did no serious damage.

Long range missiles arced over her position and hammered into what was left, crackling particle beams reaching out to dig even deeper. One blasted what was left of the  _Loki_ 's left arm to a blackened stub and another punched through the chest armour, opening the way for a flight of missiles from Cox's  _Crusader_  to wreak havoc inside. What was left of the heavy 'Mech collapsed to the floor under the rest of the company's fire – one light autocannon ventilating the cockpit.

Ace Company hadn't had matters entirely their own way however. The  _Vindicator_  not far to Victoria's right was missing its right arm, including the PPC that was its most powerful weapon, and a silvery ball of fire had replaced Zouave's  _Warhammer_  as the reactor was breached and superheated the air that entered it, obliterating seventy tons of BattleMech and one of Victoria's few surviving MechWarriors.

"Three  _Thor_ s on the right flank," Cox warned. "One  _Loki_  to your left."

Victoria could see the same problem. "Turn the heavies to face the  _Thor_ s," she ordered. "I'll take the mediums and get the  _Loki_  off your back."

Behind her  _Victor_  she could see the pair of  _Thunderbolt_ s moving in obedience to her instructions, but instead she turned left to where a lone  _Centurion_  was firing into the  _Loki_. The sight reminded her of training exercises alongside Kai Allard-Liao at the New Avalon Military Academy, the son of Justin Allard piloting the famous  _Yen-lo-Wang_.

Not caught offguard, the second  _Loki_  was a harder target. The leftmost of the  _Thunderbolt_ s was still close enough to fire on it and it used its lasers to melt gouges into the armour of the right leg and arm. Neither  _Hunchback_  hit with their autocannon, but Victoria saw the  _Loki_ 's left arm's armour shatter under her own. They didn't have enough firepower to bring the heavy Mech down as quickly this time however and one of the  _Hunchback_ s – Ramsay's, she thought - was backlit for a moment as a PPC from one of the distant  _Thor_ s caught it squarely in the back. The Mech staggered but did not fall.

For a moment the  _Loki_  paused, facing the  _Victor_  and then half-turned to unleash it's full firepower upon the less damaged  _Hunchback_. Seeing no reason to waste the open opportunity, Victoria steadied her own firing platform and raked the  _Loki_  with everything that she had. Ramsay brought her own  _Hunchback_  around the  _Loki_ 's back and hammered into it with her autocannon. The invader staggered, torso a battered ruin and the left arm sliced away by one of Victoria's lasers. Then it tumbled to the ground and Victoria's infra-red display showed a massive spike as the impact upon the ground drove sections of the structural frame through the  _Loki_ 's reactor and an ammunition bin, tearing the wreck apart in a fiery explosion.

Turning, Victoria was shocked to see how well the  _Thor_ s were holding up despite withering fire from the rest of the company. As she watched, the remaining  _Warhammer_  fell to the ground, although it rose almost immediately, leaning heavily upon a boulder to shield its damaged side. "Hang on, Badger Two, we're on our way," she announced on the company frequency, knowing that the other MechWarriors would be reassured by the reinforcement.

Firing her jump jets, Victoria rode the  _Victor_  in a shallow arc into the cover of a low cliff. At the apex of her jump, she could see that two of the  _Thor_ s were trying to use one of the small pools for cover and the third did appear to have taken some damage. Long range missiles rained down upon the damaged  _Thor_  but to no great effect. With a thunderous roar, one of the  _Thunderbolt_ s disintegrated at the front of Galen's formation, a parachute blooming in the air as the pilot ejected ahead of the ammunition explosion that had claimed it.

Seeing one of the other  _Thor_ s climbing out of the pool, Victoria charged towards it, leaving the  _Hunchback_ s behind as she moved up to support the surviving  _Thunderbolt_  and fired a full salvo into it. Seeing the enemy exposed, every remaining Lyran 'Mech opened up on her target with everything that they had. The air around them steamed as they pushed their heat dissipation to its limits. The _Thor_ 's right arm was obliterated by Victoria's autocannon and one of the  _Hunchback_ s hit home with its own, tearing into the frontal armor of the 'Mech. Lasers and missiles tore into the rest, shattering the other arm and the  _Thunderbolt_  launched a vicious kick that caught the  _Thor_  just below the left knee, causing even more damage.

In return, the battered  _Warhammer_  was brought low, its gyro a wreck and half the chest torn apart. The  _Thor_  that had taken the brunt of the massed salvo fired its jump jets and leapt over  _Victor_ towards the firing point of the  _Vindicator_. Unsure of the pilot's intentions but confident it was a relatively minor threat, armless as it was, Victoria moved forward, leaving it for the medium 'Mechs behind her to finish off. Instead, she fired her autocannon and missiles into the other damaged  _Thor_ , the last still lurking underwater where it posed no real threat. Cox's 'Mechs did likewise, although Victoria noted that they must be running low on ammuntion by now, and as the  _Thor_  collapsed, one leg shattered beneath it by her cannon, she saw the  _Hunchback_ s double team the one behind her. A moment later the ammunition rack inside her target exploded after repeated strikes of LRMs and a cascade of explosions ripped through the frame. Amazingly, the 'Mech survived, although the arm on that side did not.

In the lull, Ramsay ran forwards to pick up the  _Thunderbolt_  pilot and the  _Centurion_  picked up the pilot of the  _Warhammer_ , who had given up on getting his 'Mech upright and baled out.

"Time to pull back," Cox advised, his voice tired.

"Agreed," said Victoria immediately. "We'll regroup on your position and then head for Thunder Rift." She turned her  _Victor_  around, keeping one watchful eye on the waters in case the last  _Thor_ emerged, and fired the lasers in her left arm at the fallen  _Thor_. Other 'Mechs did likewise, not wasting valuable ammunition, but doing enough damage to ensure that the 'Mech was an unsalvagable mess.

Battered but with at least a small victory to their credit, the surviving nine Mechs and eleven Mechwarriors of Ace Company and the Command Lance, Second Battalion, headed for the refuge of Thunder Rift.

* * *

Victoria parked her  _Victor_  next to the low squat building that house the RCT's tactical operations centre, after looking warily at the  _Leopard_ -class dropship that was parked nearby – hopefully to give covering fire if enemy broke through to the base, more probably to evacuate on if things went south – which they had every sign of doing. Unbuckling herself, she opened the cockpit hatch and was lowering the rope ladder by the time Galen Cox's Crusader came to a halt, backed up to cover the rear arc of the larger BattleMech.  _I don't think he likes the vulnerability of this place any more than I do_ , Victoria thought, scrambling down the ladder.

Stepping past the guards and into the cavernous command centre, Victoria could almost smell the fear. Fragments of desperate reports and requests for support echoed around the room and the dim lights didn't hide the haggard expressions of the various communications officers, cast into bizarre shadows by the light from holographic and video displays. When they could, they were directing support to those in need, but more often they were having to reply in the negative.

Leftenant-General Hawksworth was standing next to the tactical display and Victoria crossed the floor to stand beside him, Cox only a step behind her. Before saying anything, Victoria scanned the holographic imagery and her blood went cold. The icons representing her Second Battalion and the Red Brigade were the worst, only confirming her fears at how severely they had been mauled breaking through into the cavern system, but First and Third Battalions were barely above half-strength and what positions were reported indicated heavy pressure. The supporting tanks and infantry were scarcely better off.

"Kommandant Steiner-Davion reporting, sir," she said, forcing calm in her voice as she saluted.

Hawksworth's return of the salute was listless – he seemed to have aged a decade in the two days since Victoria had last seen him and his mood was a mirror to that in the room. His voice was still brisk though. "No beating around the bush, Kommandant. You saw that  _Leopard_  out there?"

Victoria nodded. "Yes sir."

"Good, get on it." The Leftenant-General looked over at Cox. "You too, Cox. Both of you. Get the hell out of here."

 _But…_ Victoria's mind protested, eyes flicking to her battalion, her men. "Yes sir," she heard herself acknowledge, automatically. "Leftenant-General, may I speak candidly? Outside?"

Hawksworth eyed her suspiciously. "This had better be good, Kommandant. I'm not reconsidering my orders."

"I understand, sir," Victoria told him. "It won't take long." She led him out of the door and into the evening sunlight.

"Alright, what is this about," he demanded, looking down at her.

"Sir, you look like death warmed over and it's hitting morale just about as hard as those  _batards_  out there are hitting the troops," Victoria told him in a low voice. "I know it's bad, but there isn't any chance at all if you can't hold us together."

The Leftenant-General glared, muscles in his jaw bunching but he flinched when he met Victoria's accusing blue eyes and looked away, around the scattered troops and facilities around him, at Cox, who was standing away to screen their conversation from the guards nearby.

"The battle for Trell One is over, General. We both know that and I guess you hate it just about as much as I do," said Victoria. "What you're fighting for now is the survival of the Twelfth Donegal Guards. And you can't win that fight in there. Get your 'Mech – hell, take mine, I won't need it aboard a dropship – and get everyone mobile up into the mountains, head for Thunder Rift. There's an opening if you can move fast enough and you'll last longer up there then you will holding a perimeter that can't be held."

"It's…" Hawksworth shook his head and took a deep breath. "It's good to get out of the command centre," he admitted. "I hadn't realised how much it was getting to me."

Victoria smiled wanly. "You're not used to losing, sir. Me neither."

She staggered as Hawksworth clapped her vigorously on the shoulder. "Let's not make it a habit then," he suggested, voice at least a little stronger than it had been. "My 'Mech's around, but if the offer's open..."

"Leftenant Kratman lost her  _Thunderbolt_  up at Thunder Rift," Victoria suggested. "I'll reset the security codes for her when I pull my kit out. I take it you have a destination in mind once the dropship takes off?"

"There's a jumpship lying doggo at the zenith jump point," confirmed Hawksworth. "As far as we can tell, no one's noticed her so far, so once you're there, you can make a clean escape."


	3. Chapter 3

**Black Pearl Base, Sudeten**

**Tamer March, Lyran Commonwealth**

**15 June 3050**

Unsuspecting, the Thor moved across the holovid screen from the left, snow and thin ribbons of ice glittering from its head and shoulders as it traveled through the blizzard. Tendrils of steam drifted up from the fire-blackened shell of the LRM launcher on the  _Thor_ 's left shoulder and other half-melted scars on its body. Where wind-whipped snow actually fell against the myomer muscle exposed on the  _Thor_ 's right arm, arcing sparks converted to vapor as the muscle flexed and moved the PPC side to side in a vain search for prey.

Suddenly the snow exploded up around the 'Mech's legs. Black dirt and shards of armor sprayed into the air to stain the virgin snow as the buried mine savaged the  _Thor_ 's legs. The giant 'Mech staggered and dropped to one knee. All around it, snow-encrusted Donegal 'Mechs encircled their foe and poured SRM and laser fire into the  _Thor_. Under the hideous barrage, the heavy 'Mech tottered and went down…

Victoria Steiner-Davion looked up from the holovid display as Galen Cox returned from the shuttle cockpit and started buckling himself into the seat across the aisle from her. "Five minute warning?" she asked. Cox had been getting stir crazy in the passenger section of the shuttle during the two day dash from the  _Hejira_ , which was still making a slow run from the nadir jump point at only one gravity. More accustomed to extended travel from her childhood – and having more proportionate space, a benefit of topping out barely five feet tall even in heels – Victoria had found this mildly amusing.

"Yes," he confirmed, checking to see that she was also tightening her own straps for the re-entry. "Do you think there's more to learn from that?" he added, glancing at the screen built into the back of the seat ahead of Victoria as she shut it down

 _Nothing we learn could be worth the price paid for this._  The Twelth Donegal Guards had maintained a constant uplink to the  _Hejira_  as it fled out from Trell One towards the jumpship  _Strongbow_ , sending every BattleROM they could salvage of the fight. In comparison to the scant moments that Phelan Kell had had to gather information, they had sent hours of records and even speculation by the regiments technicians based on what little they could gather from salvaged equipment on the few occasions where they had managed to bring one of the Invaders down. Victoria had thrown herself into sorting and analysing the data during the two month voyage.

"There's enough to draw a few conclusions," she told him, leaning back to rest her short coppery hair against the seat. "For one thing, they aren't as advanced as I was afraid they were."

Cox blinked. "They aren't? What were you expecting?"

Victoria tapped her fingers on the arm rest. "Their weapons are better than ours, but not overwhelmingly. Other than that, well, that and their infantry, I don't think they have all that much of a lead over what we can manufacture. The problem is that we haven't produced the best equipment we can in any great quantity – it's too expensive. Take the 'Mech we designated as a ' _Thor_ '. It's pretty obviously derived from a  _Thunderbolt_ , what with the offset cockpit and the LRM rack on the other shoulder."

"Except for being faster, tougher and harder hitting, yes," Cox pointed out.

"I don't think it is tougher, actually. Looking at where it's hit, it seems to have about the same armour coverage as a  _Thunderbolt_. I'll grant you the other two points, but I think I can tell you how it does that."

In his seat Cox looked sceptical. "You've cracked it already. That's… impressive."

She snorted in response. "Let's say that I have a theory. Look, firstly, a  _Thor_  weighs about as much as an  _Archer_. And to move as fast as it does – well past eighty kph, it has to have fairly substantial engine. By my maths, it would have to be nearly as powerful as the thirty-three ton fusion reactor for a Cyclops. Add in a dozen tons of armour, a gyro, internal structure and that's another twenty five tons at least. Which leaves maybe twelve tons of weapons, right. No way is that enough tonnage for a PPC, those LRMs and an autocannon."

"Sounds like you just proved that they have to be far more advanced than us," Galen said then frowned. "You're thinking of Star League technology, the advances that have been made in the last few years."

"Exactly. The Star League worked out how to drastically reduce the weight of a fusion reactor's shielding at the expense of making it considerably bulkier," Victoria explained. "Once that occurred to me, I started looking at the records, trying to get views of Mechs with damaged torsos, and surprise surprise: the reactor on a  _Thor_  is much broader than I'd expect from a standard fusion reactor. Now, Tharkad University cracked the theoretical problems years ago, and that's something that we  _can_  build, we just haven't put them into mass production because they're so expensive."

"Similarly, NAIS has successfully recreated the improved heatsinks used in the Star League, which improve heat dissipation for a Mech by roughly one hundred percent. If the  _Thor_  has that, then even with only sixty-percent the heatsinks used in a  _Thunderbolt_ , it could easily handle the heat from a full alpha strike, even while jumping. So, reduced tonnage for heatsinks, a lightweight engine and all of a sudden, the tonnage for those weapons doesn't look all that impossible, does it?"

"Sounds like we could have our own versions of the  _Thor_  in deployment now," Cox said. "Let me guess: it's not that simple."

"If we had them ready for deployment, then father would probably be refitting everything in sight and laying plans for another crack at the Combine, or maybe the League before they figured out how to use them. It's taken most of a decade and more money than I care to think about to go from making them one at a time in a laboratory environment to building substantial numbers and work out how to actually fit them to BattleMechs. There aren't many 'Mechs out there equipped with them yet," Victoria confirmed. "That's going to have to change."

"I'm surprised that your parents didn't give you a 'Mech with that technology though," said Cox thoughtfully. "Anything that keeps you alive, after all..."

"They wanted the technology to be proven, first," Victoria said, and then grinned. "So I made a very large donation to NAIS with a string attached. The result was shipped from New Avalon some time around the new year. Last I heard it was on Tharkad, waiting for me, but I sent a message to my cousin Morgan and asked him to see if he could bring it to Sudeten with him. I don't expect I'll get another command slot, but at least I won't be dispossessed."

Cox frowned as the shuttle shivered slightly, wings making contact with the atmosphere. "Why wouldn't you get a command? I don't think Aleksandr Kerensky himself could have won on Trell One, and you handled yourself pretty well for your first time in combat."

"There are three very important hurdles to that," Victoria pointed out. "My parents, who'd probably rather I was in a safe staff slot – and unlike most parents they can make that stick. A prospective commander, who'd have to be willing to take a chance that Hawksworth wouldn't. And troops who'd probably be afraid they were getting stuck with a Jonah. You know how superstitious, MechWarriors can get."

Cox winced. "Three strikes."

"Indeed. Still, in time, opportunities may arise. And -" she shrugged. "Who knows? I'd like to think I could be a pretty decent staff officer. Could be I'd be more useful there."

"Possibly," Cox said. "If all else fails, you can always go mercenary like Kristen Marik. There's at least one MechWarrior on the shuttle who'd follow you."

Victoria blinked at him and then turned her head away to hide her blush.  _Thank you, Galen. That means a great deal._

"Quite a reception committee," Galen Cox said, nodding towards the glass-walled visitor's lounge near the escalator that was carrying the two officers away from the functional end of the spaceport. "Are you going to need me to run cover for you against the young men of Sudeten the way you did on Trell One?"

Victoria looked in the direction indicated and squinted. "I think most of them are married," she said after a moment. "And old enough to be my father, for that matter. You don't recognise them?"

The blond Hauptmann looked sheepish. "I wasn't exactly keeping up on Burke's Peerage, out on Trellwan, your Highness. I guess I'm going to need you to run cover for me this time then."

"Well the redhead in the black and gold uniform is Theodore Kurita," Victoria told him without batting an eyelid. "Don't let the samurai manners fool you, he's a real teddy-bear."

Galen coughed. "Uh, Kommandant. I do recognise the commander of the AFFC, you know. Isn't Marshal Hasek-Davion your uncle or something?"

"Can't blame a girl for trying," Victoria defended herself. "And it's cousin, technically, although there is a bit of an age gap. The guy beside Morgan is Leftenant-General Andrew Redburn, who you probably read about at the War College."

"That's him?" Galen asked. "Didn't he handle the defense of Gan Singh, back in '42?"

"Same guy," confirmed Victoria. "Good man in a light 'Mech, taught me just about everything I know about recon back when I was a kid. And speaking of a good man in a light 'Mech, I think that's Dan Allard down there in the Kell Hounds uniform. I guess they want a crack at the guys who took down Phelan."

"I was wondering what the uniform was," Galen agreed. "Do you know the other Kell Hound there?"

"It's impossible not to," said Victoria ruefully. "That's another of my cousins, Christian Kell, one of Dan's battalion commanders. He's real good – Jaime Wolf is still trying to recruit him away into the Dragoons, last time I heard."

"High praise," Galen noted and then frowned. "But I thought your cousin Phelan was Morgan Kell's only son."

Victoria nodded. "Christian is his nephew. He grew up on Murchison before we took it from the Combine in '39, and only contacted the Kells after his mother died. When the genotyping proved he was Patrick Kell's son, Morgan took him to Outreach and got him the best training there before turning him loose – he earned his battalion the hard way, on Ambergrist."

"Damn," said Galen. "That's a pretty impressive reception. Who's the last guy, Death personifed?"

"That," Victoria said, a note of pride in her voice, "Is Kai." She eyed the man thoughtfully for a moment. "I think he's gotten even taller since I last saw him."

"Kai?"

"Kai Allard-Liao, the heir to St Ives. He graduated from the New Avalon Military Academy last year, had a lance in the Eleventh Lyran Guards down on the League border, last time he wrote to me."

"The Eleventh are a crack unit," Galen said. "How did he get a slot with them right out of the Academy?"

Victoria stepped off the bottom of the escalator, steadying the bag of supplies provided by the  _Hejira_. "You recall the La Mancha scenario?"

Galen winced. "Yeah. Who doesn't?" The La Mancha was one training exercise used in all AFFC academies, pitting the cadet single-handedly against four larger and more powerful BattleMechs. It was a brutal no-win scenario and usually bruising to the ego.

"Kai beat it," Victoria told him under her breath and left him fighting to keep his jaw closed as she saluted Morgan Hasek-Davion. "Kommandant Steiner-Davion and a party of one, reporting for duty, sir."

Morgan returned the salute crisply and then gave into sentiment and pulled Victoria into a hug, the diminutive young woman pulled up onto tip toes by the gesture as Morgan's long coppery hair spilled forwards from his shoulders and onto the top of her scarcely lighter hair. "It's good to see you made it here, safely, Victoria."

Victoria nodded. "Thank Hauptmann Cox here, without him on my wing I'd probably never have made it back to the spaceport on Trell One."

"Then the Commonwealth owes you a great debt, Hauptmann Cox," Morgan said seriously, shaking Galen's hand.

"I think it was more the way around, sir," Galen said gracefully. "If the Kommandant hadn't been a step ahead of them tactically, none of us would have made it back to our lines." His face tightened.

Behind Morgan, Andrew Redburn was the next to greet Victoria although he limited himself to a handshake. "Sounds like another couple of young mechwarriors I remember," he said drily. "Back about twenty years, wasn't it Morgan?"

"We didn't have quite such a desperate trial by fire," the commander of the Armed Forces of the Federated Commonwealth said quietly. "We're going to be picking your brains for the next few weeks as the troops assemble," he added to Victoria. "The Twelfth Donegal Guards did their best but no one expected anything like this invasion. We have to do better than that."

"I've done some preliminary work," Victoria agreed and turned towards the two Kell Hounds, "Both from the data that General Hawksworth transmitted and the reports from the Rock. It's good to see you again, Colonel, Chris. I just wish the circumstances were better."

"After what happened to Phelan, wild horses couldn't have kept us away," Christian assured her, his eyes haunted. "Besides, I have firm orders from your Aunt Nondi to deliver a certain package that's been cluttering up the hangers under the Triad."

"Along with scathing commentary about keeping my toys closer to hand and not thinking I'm the second coming of the Black Widow, no doubt," Victoria chuckled. She turned to the last of the welcoming party with a smile. "Good to see you, Kai."

Kai Allard-Liao offered his hand but Victoria wasn't taking any of that and dragged him into a hug. "So, if I decide to quit working for Morgan and go mercenary are you up for it? I'll give you a lance as soon as I have enough 'Mechs."

"Wait, what?" he spluttered and Galen chuckled at the startled expression on the younger man's face.

"I figure the odds are against me getting another command unless I build my own," Victoria said, still holding onto Kai's forearms. "It worked for the Duke of New Ivaarsen."

"Not entirely," Morgan told her grimly. "The Second Chasseurs were wiped out on Somerset last month. And you aren't going to be without a command. When we pulled the Tenth Lyran Guards off Atria several officers decided they'd rather retire there than go to war. I'm giving you a battalion."

Victoria's jaw dropped. "Somewhere on Dromini, the remains of Frederick Steiner are spinning in his grave," she said at last.  _The Tenth Lyran Guards used to be one of the best units we had!_  "I hope you're exaggerating a little."

"He is," Kai assured her quickly. "There were only a handful of resignations and everyone else has something to prove."

"Everyone else?" Victoria gave him a puzzled look, then tugged him around to examine his unit patch. "You quit the Eleventh Lyran Guards?"

He shrugged and grinned. "They were asking for volunteers – quite a few people got promoted to fill out the gaps."

"Yes, but -" She stopped and checked his rank insignia. "You didn't get promoted. So why…"

Morgan chuckled. "Blame your father," he said, passing the buck courageously. "Your mother wanted you to join the Tenth – it's notorious for the number of future Archons who served in it. But it was Hanse's idea that since deploying you five hundred light years apart hadn't worked out -"

Victoria let go of Kai's sleeves and glared at her cousin.

"- maybe he could try putting the full legal weight of the AFFC's code of conduct between you," Morgan said, hiding a smile. "There are rules against relationships up and down the chain of command you know. And you wouldn't expect to get some sort of special dispensation would you?"

"That's evil," Victoria said in shock. "Raising my own regiment is sounding better and better."

* * *

**Black Pearl Base, Sudeten**

**Tamar March, Lyran Commonwealth**

**1 July 3050**

Victoria bumped into Galen Cox as she left her room for the meeting with the Junior Officer Strategy Board to discuss tactics to counter the invaders' – current intelligence suggested at least two groups, designating themselves as Jade Falcons (the attackers on Trell One) and the Wolves (Phelan's killers) – armored infantry. Startled, she lost her grip on the proposals she'd been drafting and as she reeled back, more intent upon catching the papers than upon her own balance, she crashed into Kai Allard-Liao, which completed the disaster. AFFC-headed paper scattered across the floor and the only reason that Victoria didn't follow them was that Kai caught her.

"Whoa – um… oh. Thank you, Kai," she greeted him once she had reoriented herself. "Sorry about that. You too, Galen. I'm not usually this clumsy."

"Not enough caffeine?" Galen asked charitably and then sniffed the air, detecting the aroma from the coffee-maker Victoria had obtained for herself out of the Base stores. It was taking more and more to get her going every morning, she had found. The blond Hauptmann raised his eyebrows. "Taken to stronger brews?"

"I had a mug," Victoria waved him off and crouched to recover her paperwork. The two men met each other's eyes over her head.

"Let me get those for you," Galen offered in a sudden show of gallantry while Kai almost picked her up off the ground and half-carried her back into her room with three quick steps despite an indignant yelp from the princess.

"Are you sure you aren't coming down with something?" Kai asked seriously, setting her down. "I don't recall seeing you this stressed even for end of year exams at NAMA."

Victoria shook her head. "The stakes are a little bit higher this time," she told him, picking up a manual from the desk. "Start small and work your way up: if I don't get to grips with my new ride then I might wind up dead; if I don't get the battalion in shape, I could lose all of them; and if I mess up at the Strategy Board, the entire AFFC could get wrong-footed. I don't have time to be ill."

Kai's eyes narrowed dangerously as he added up the demands on her time. "How much sleep have you been getting?" he demanded, cutting to the heart of his concerns.

"Five hours a day… mostly," Victoria admitted, not meeting his eyes.

"Which means four – possibly less," he guessed. "You're smarter than that – if you miss something because you're punch drunk, then someone really could wind up dead. I can't believe the techs even let you near your 'Mech looking like that."

"I'm alright," she protested. "It just takes me a few minutes to wake up."

"You used to be up at the crack of dawn every morning at NAMA," Kai objected. "Even the morning after you and Wendy Sylvester went bar crawling in New Avalon in those ridiculous disguises."

Galen stepped into the room holding her paperwork. "She was the same on Trell One." He paused for effect. "Well, except the disguises when she went bar crawling."

"Do you mind not talking as if I'm not here? Or even letting me out of here so I can get to the meeting," protested Victoria.

"Do you really need to be at the meeting?" Galen asked.

"Yes!" Victoria shouted.

"No," Kai said judiciously. "I've got a few ideas, but I can just give someone my notes." He looked over at the papers Galen held. "Are those Victoria's notes?"

"Not for the meeting," the blond said. "Looks like that idea she had on the shuttle for duplicating a  _Thor_. Want me to take your notes to the meeting?"

"If you leave me hers," Kai agreed. "I can see if her spelling's improved."

"Bad?"

"Not in German, no."

Practically red in the face, Victoria slumped down to sit on the bed. "Would the two of you please stop acting like children? I've got a job to do."

Kai went to one knee in front of her, putting their faces on a level. "Vicky, we're your friends. You're burning yourself out trying to do three jobs at once. It would be hard enough getting used to a new 'Mech when you're also taking on a whole Battalion. But you're trying to re-write the book on BattleMech procurement as well. You need to rest or you're going to fail at all of them."

Victoria stared at him and then buried her face in Kai's right shoulder, beating one fist gently against his other shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her. "I lost my damn Battalion to those _batards_ ," she whispered. "I can't do that again."

Neither of them noticed Galen slipping out of the door, or that he had locked it behind him.

"Is something the matter, Hauptmann?" asked a half-familiar voice from behind him.

Galen half-jumped and once he'd turned around snapped off a salute with parade-ground precision, as was appropriate when faced with the Marshal of the AFFC. "No sir, just leaving for the Junior Officer's Strategy Board meeting."

Morgan Hasek-Davion nodded solemnly. "Ah. I was hoping to catch Kommandant Steiner-Davion before that meeting. Have I missed her?"

Galen froze.  _Oh you've really put your foot in it now, Cox,_  he thought. When he'd first learned that Victoria Steiner-Davion would be assigned to the Twelth Donegal Guards, he – like most of the other younger officers – had entertained momentary fairy-tale fantasies. She was young, and while not classically beautiful, Victoria was never less than striking even in AFFC uniforms. Wondering how old girlfriends – or even their parents – would have reacted to a relationship had amused him, before reality arrived like a bucket of cold water.

Galen and Victoria were worlds apart. She was a noble, heiress to two dynasties almost a thousand years old and destined to rule almost half of humanity. Galen was an ordinary citizen, whose father ran a repair shop and had never come closer to the Commonwealth's ruling House than the images on a stamp or coin. And although they'd fought together, sharing a bond as Mechwarriors, even now that friendship wasn't an equal one because the man enquiring about Galen's commander was not only her cousin, he was Galen's supreme commander.  _These are dangerous waters I've entered._

"The Kommandant is resting, sir. I don't believe she'll be attending the meeting today," he managed.

"Victoria's resting?" Morgan's eyebrows rose. "You must be a good influence on her, Hauptmann. Usually her idea of resting is to only do the work of two people instead of her usual schedule."

"I noticed that, sir," Galen said, relaxing slightly.

"So, what's your secret?" the Marshal asked. "Because we've all been looking for a way to get her to slow down a little since she was old enough to walk and talk at the same time."

"I locked her in her room with Leftenant Allard," confessed Galen without thinking the statement through. The startled look on Morgan's face made him realise what he'd just said.

Morgan cleared his throat. "Perhaps you'd like to explain that in a little more detail, Hauptmann Cox," he ordered politely, but with colour rising in his face.

"We figured it would be best not to let her back out of bed until… uh, that sounded better in my head, sir," he broke off in embarrassment.  _I'm a dead man. My career is over. I wonder if I'll like military prison._

The redheaded officer stared glassily down the corridor and then gave in, leaning against the wall and bellowing with helpless laughter. "That – oh god – that would work," he chortled. "Might want to be careful how I tell her parents though – they like Kai, you know, but the politics would be a nightmare if the two of them do get together."

Galen said nothing, still numb with a fear of consequences that were now completely out of his hands. Morgan looked up at him and laughed again. "You're not the first man I've seen with that expression on his face after working with the Young Fox for a while. She ran about a third of NAIS ragged the one year she was there. The faculty breathed a great sigh of relief the day the semester finished and she had to leave for Robinson with the rest of the family."

"Drop those off at the meeting and take the rest of the day off," he offered kindly. "She'll be raring to go when she gets out, you should get some rest first."

"Ah… I still have the keys for her room," protested Galen.

Morgan shrugged. "Her cousin Phelan taught her to pick locks when she was fifteen, I'm sure she'll manage."

* * *

**Black Pearl Base, Sudeten**

**Tamar March, Lyran Commonwealth**

**2 July 3050**

A thrill went up Victoria's spine as she and Kai entered the base's Mechbays. She couldn't believe how much better she felt after sleeping the day through, waking only intermittently to watch Kai for a while as he sat at her desk doing his own paperwork for the Strategy Board. She hadn't even realised, the last few times she'd been in the 'Mechbay that the experience had lacked the old excitement she remembered from playing in the Royal Guards' mechbays before (and after) her aunt Nondi had told her off for doing so.

Most of the units gathered on Sudeten had left their BattleMechs aboard their dropships, removing only those that could benefit from repairs impossible aboard ships. As a result the majority of the 'Mechs that towered over the two young officers were painted in the colours of the famous Gray Death Legion, who had held the landhold on Sudeten for almost two decades. Threading their way through the ranks, the pair made their way towards two of the exceptions, 'Mechs sporting the ceremonial white and blue of the Lyran Guards.

This corner of the barn-like structure was relatively quiet – a technican on a cherry-picker was loading rounds into the back of  _Yen-lo-Wang_ , no doubt feeding the magazine for the massive Pontiac 100 that dominated the right arm. Even if Victoria hadn't known the famous 'Mech's history from the Solaris arenas, she was well familiar with the weapon from her old  _Victor_. A second man was examining her own 'Mech and in the shadows it took her a moment to recognise him.

"Colonel Carlyle," she greeted him, saluting briskly.

The commander of the Gray Death Legion returned the salute briskly. "Good morning, Kommandant, Leftenant," he said. "You're… up early."

 _What was that pause for?_  Victoria wondered.  _Why wouldn't we be…_  She and Kai exchanged sharp, half-guilty looks as they came to the same realisation. They'd both been out of sight for a whole day. All it would take would be one off-colour joke and half the Base would be convinced they'd been off in a honeymoon suite the whole time. "Well it's the German blood in me," Victoria brazened. "Always got to be first out there on the sunbed."  _And even if it was true, we're both adults so it would be no one else's business,_  she rationalised, knowing that it wasn't true.

Carlyle chuckled. "I know it's hard to believe," he told them, "But I was young once myself. I pilot one of these myself -" he jerked his thumb up towards Victoria's new  _Marauder_  "– although I see you've customised yours a bit."

"Just a bit," Victoria told him. "It was a bit of an experiment – you can probably see where the torso needed to be rebuilt around the new heatsinks."

"Yes," Carlyle agreed. "And the improved armour around the torso ring and the weapon mount is a good design, I had mine modified in much the same way, although without the freezers, of course."

"Naturally," Victoria agreed and reached for the collar of her uniform jacket. "Excuse me, we really need to get up and going if we're going to have first crack at the gunnery course."

The Colonel nodded. "Go right ahead. I'll watch you from Course Central, if you don't mind." He leant forwards. "Actually, there are going to be quite a few people there this morning. There's some money riding on how well your new 'Mech does. Don't let your supporters down."

Victoria choked indignantly and before she could come up with a response, Carlyle was striding away from them, crossing the Mechbay swiftly.  _Stupid… tall… old man! And who's got the nerve to bet against me!?_  she fumed as she stripped off her jacket and shirt, leaving her with only an undershirt between her skin and the goretex lining of the cooling vest that Kai offered her before pulling his own out of the bag he had insisted on carrying for her out from the accomodation block.

Loosening her belt, she snuck a look at Kai while his shirt was off and then sat on the fender of the cherrypicker to slip off the uniform pants she was wearing over her mechwarrior shorts, a pleased smile on her face after that guilty indulgence. "Are you done loading his 'Mech?" she called up to the technician.

"Just sealing the ammo bins up, your highness," the man called down to her.

"That's Kommandant," Victoria snapped and then sighed. "Besides, you're the one higher up than me at the moment," she joked, slapping the cherrypicker's tyre with one hand as she stood up and started folding her uniform into a convenient bundle. "Kai, since  _Yen-lo-Wang_ 's just about ready for you, I'll go mount up myself."

Victoria scrambled up the rope ladder dangling from the side of her  _Marauder_ 's tapering torso, her bundled uniform thrust inside her half-open cooling vest. The heavy Mech's hatch was on top, more than six times higher than Victoria's head when she stood on the ground. She had to laugh at some infantrymen who groused about 'layabout mechjocks' – it was a rare day that one of them had to climb that far, and even once in the cockpit piloting a Mech was physically demanding. The rope ladder waved around as she climbed but she was used to that – having someone secure the bottom wasn't always possible – and less than a minute later she scrambled up on to the top of the  _Marauder_  and clambered into the open hatch, slapping the control to retract the rope ladder into its small compartment. The electric motor rattled behind her, only to mute suddenly as Victoria closed the hatch above her and the airtight seal formed.

The cockpit of the  _Marauder_  was spacious enough for even large men, so Victoria had no difficulty reaching around the command couch to drop her clothes into the locker set aside from them. While checking the contents of the other lockers – survival gear under the ejection seat, emergency rations in their locker, toilet roll and a small medical kit in their places – she felt her ears pop as the cockpit over-pressurized. Thumbing the power switch for the reactor, Victoria rebuckled her cooling vest, this time drawing it close around her where it would do most good, and strapped herself into the couch. One disadvantage of the size of the cockpit was that if she got bounced out of the chair, a Mechwarrior would likely wind up with broken bones so Victoria double-checked every strap before plugging the power cord of her cooling vest into the coupling on the left side of the couch.

Opposite that coupling was a small compartment with four medical sensors and Victoria peeled them from the adhesive strip and placed them on her thighs and upper arms with the ease of long experience. The same compartment also gave up cables she threaded through loops on the cooling vest and then plugged into the sensors, leaving the loose ends dangling near her throat. Reaching up her, Victoria lifted the neurohelmet from the shelf above and behind the command couch, pleased that she'd accustomed herself to the  _Marauder_  to the point that she could do so without looking. Lowering it over her head, she let it rest on her shoulders and plugged the cables in before moving working it from side to side a little until the neurosensors inside the helmet sat correctly and she could see clearly out of the clear faceplate, then used velcro tabs to secure the helmet.

The reactor was running smoothly now, a steady vibration in the frame of the  _Marauder_ , and Victoria could feel warm air currents around her legs. The 'Mech was ready, but there was another step to take before she could take the controls. Like all 'Mechs, the  _Marauder_  had a security system that would prevent any of the controls from functioning unless it received the proper voiceprint: its designated pilot voicing the preset codewords. Victoria pressed a glowing yellow button on her command console.

"Identify yourself," a harsh, female voice demanded from inside Victoria's neurohelmet. She smiled involuntarily at the sound of Nondi Steiner's voice. Her great-aunt had been touched when Victoria had asked permission to use recordings of her voice for the  _Marauder_ 's computer.

"Victoria Katrina Steiner-Davion," she responded, letting the computer chew over whether or not it would believe her.

"Landgrave," Nondi's voice responded, using Victoria's Lyran title. "Confirm your authority."

Victoria smiled tightly. She'd read extensively as a child and selected her code phrase accordingly. "'He never claimed to be a god'," she recited. "'But then, he never claimed not to be a god'." The yellow button ceased to glow as the interlocks disconnected and the holographic display came to life, compacting a 360 degree view of the  _Marauder_ 's surroundings into the 160 degree arc in front of her but still Victoria waited. She had asked Nondi Steiner to give her voice to the security… but she had asked her father for his double interlock, with a second code that separately would reserve control of the weapon systems. The next lines of the book she had quoted from referred to silence and there was a built-in delay that must be endured, only a few seconds but long enough to feel unnatural, long enough that she could have read those lines (which was a convenient way to measure it). Then: "Your prayers and your curses come to the same," she told the  _Marauder_  and the yellow light blinked twice in response, confirming that the weapons were now unlocked.

Off to one side,  _Yen-lo-Wang_  was already taking its first step out of position, strongly suggesting that Kai didn't have such an elaborate security set up. Or at least such a lengthy one. Victoria hadn't asked – such enquiries were, for obvious reasons, considered highly inappropriate among Mechwarriors. She took her own controls and began a steady, careful walk out of the 'Mech Hanger, not wanting to inadvertently damage any of the Gray Death Legion's equipment by walking over, or into it. She could see them out of her cockpit's small frontal window, past the holographic display, but the distortions of height and the narrow field of vision made the primary display more useful even without the overlay of data highlighting the hanger's navigation beacons, units recognised from the computer's extensive memory banks and the necessary targeting data if she decided to unleash the firepower of her  _Marauder_  upon them.

Not, of course, that she would do such a thing to a loyal Lyran mercenary unit like the Legion. With her 'Mech and Kai's the only active ones in the hanger, they could shatter the backbone of the unit's BattleMech strength before anyone but the posted guards could react. That was the power placed in the hands of a Mechwarrior: that unopposed by others of their kind they could shatter fortresses and cities and even small armies. Victoria knew better than most the reasons that Inner Sphere academies had such high drop-out rates was the importance of weeding out those who might abuse that power.

"It's good to be back in the saddle," she told Kai, kicking the heavy 'Mech into a lope as she followed him out of the exit and towards the beginning of the gunnery course. As the two Mechs accelerated towards sixty kilometers per hour, they left the heavy ferrocrete surface of the road and followed the trail of footprints left in the peaty soil of the glacial valley by the thousands of 'Mechs that had followed this trail over the years. "CorCen, this is Kommandant Steiner-Davion with two BattleMechs, now entering the gunnery course. Please confirm readiness."

"All systems report as ready, Kommandant," a clipped voice responded. "You will enter the active range thirty seconds from my mark. All targets will be mag-res or infrared, not visual so don't rely on vislight scan." The woman paused. "Mark."

Turning a corner in the valley, Victoria gripped the two joystick controllers that directed the crosshairs for her weapons. Mounted on the arms of the command couch, rather than configuring them to control the left and right side weapon mounts, she had opted to slave all three of the particle cannons to one of the triggers in her right hand: index and middle fingers for the arm-mounts and the thumb button firing the torso-mounted PPC. Similarly, her left hand joystick controlled the lasers in the same locations. Warning klaxons, so loud that she could hear them even in the sealed cockpit, blared as the course registered two BattleMechs crossing the start line and almost immediately the decoys scattered across the course began to pretend that they were hostile units posing a threat to Victoria and Kai.

The first targets appeared immediately, outcrops of rocks transformed into a  _Javelin_  and a  _Wasp_  standing on the hillside. Kai was first to fire, being slightly in the lead he was just within reach of his autocannon and the Pontiac roared, tracers slashing into the  _Javelin_ 's central chest… and tumbled shells visible exited the rear as the course computer massaged the numbers and concluded a hit there would dramatically overkill the target. Only moments later, Victoria had brought her crosshairs over the  _Wasp_  and fired her PPCs, closing each trigger deliberate succession, spacing out the cycle time and the waves of heat that went through her cockpit.

Inside the  _Marauder_  air wavered and sweat formed on her skin. Outside, three bolts of lightning tore gouges in the rock. According to the simulation, one shot missed low, but the first had struck the _Wasp_ 's right arm, wrecking the medium laser there and blasting apart armour from the wrist up past the shoulder. Her last shot crashed into the left leg, all but vaporising it and toppling the 20-ton 'Mech to the floor, unable to stand and missing both its weapons.

Neither of the two Mechwarriors paid it any attention, focusing on the next targets: a lance of  _Goblin_  tanks that popped into view, almost in their path.

* * *

**Black Pearl Base, Sudeten**

**Tamar March, Lyran Commonwealth**

**12 July 3050**

"We noticed fairly early that the Clans' BattleMechs are significantly more advanced than those we field," Victoria briefed the gathered officers. Thus far the meeting felt quite a bit like defending her thesis at the Nagelring had – although it was probably the other way round. The Nagelring's curriculum was intended to prepare students for military life after all. "Even more so than those of the Star League in fact. However, they are still BattleMechs and the improvements over the Star League, are incremental, not the enormous jump that they represent against our current standards." The Junior Officer's Strategy Board had divided up the areas that they had covered, and Victoria had called dibs on the technical side.

"In general, the principal advances made by the Clans in technology are in two areas: they have structural elements such as reactors, heatsinks and armour that are at least as good as those of the Star League; and they have advanced weapons which are definitely superior to those of the Star League. The former is the principal problem that needs to be addressed."

"Excuse me - you just said that they are even more advanced in guns than they are in other areas and you think that that's the lesser problem?" objected Sharon Byran. The Marshal of the Eleventh Lyran Guards had an irritated look on her face.

"Marshal, the solution to someone having  _better_  guns than you is one well understood by the Lyran military: use  _more_  guns. This is well within our capability to accomplish - and I'm  _not_  suggesting that we should ignore possible ways to improve our weapons to match those used by the Clans. However, the advanced reactors and heatsinks of the Clans are the real danger because they provide Clan 'Mechs with improved mobility and enable them to carry more weapons. These represent advantages that we cannot afford to concede to them over an extended conflict."

"The Clans can field scouts fifty percent faster than ours, without compromising combat ability. Their heavy and medium combatants can typically operate at least thirty percent faster than ours, again, without any loss in firepower. Their assault 'Mechs can carry at least one more major weapon system than our equivalent designs and can fire all of them without suffering crippling heat build ups. Fortunately, they appear comparable to those used by the Star League which we are beginning to manufacture."

"Unfortunately, with some exceptions, these advances are difficult to retrofit into our existing BattleMechs without full rebuilds. Therefore I propose a programme of switching our current production to revised designs that have these technologies included from day one, and the provision of prepared kits that can be issued to update BattleMechs currently in service and put into use without months of work."

"The core of the refit programme will be to replace fusion reactors with similar models that include improved heatsinks. Secondarily to this, within reason, weapons will be replaced with what Star League era equipment we have. In some cases, where 'Mechs no longer require supplemental heatsinks, weight freed up will be used for additional weapons or armour. The majority of our heavy and assault 'Mechs can benefit from such updates, as will many medium designs, and should see an average of a twenty percent increase in firepower simply because they can make full use of their firepower."

The realities of heat management were ingrained in every Mechwarrior and those present could easily imagine how much easier that would be with the proposed increased heatsink capacity. One point caught their attention however.

"You're talking about pulling heatsinks  _out_  of 'Mechs?" asked Byran. "How will  _that_  help anything?"

Victoria smiled thinly. "Marshal, you saw my  _Marauder_  out on the gunnery range last week. How would you compare its firepower to that of, let's say, an  _Awesome_?"

"Yes, yes," Byran waved the point off. "You're not the first Mechwarrior to fit three PPCs to a  _Marauder_ , you know. I don't like to think how many extra heatsinks you had to fit."

"None."

"Pardon?" asked Byran.

"My 'Mech carries the same tonnage of heatsinks as that it did when it was built as a -3R model," Victoria told her. "It hasn't lost any speed for the modifications, or any armour - but it carries the firepower of an  _Awesome_  and it can fire all three of them repeatedly without causing a dangerous heat build up while an  _Awesome_  needs to stagger fire, typically in a 3-3-2 pattern to control the heat. So at long ranges, I have twelve percent more effective firepower than a Mech five tons heavier and sixteen percent slower. Now, it's not an unalloyed success: the increased bulk of the heatsinks required a significant rebuild of the torso. The lessons learned from that can be applied here: the engineers at NAIS could have trimmed four tons from the design and about a month of work by keeping the autocannon and reducing the overall number of heatsinks."

"So, to recap: for this year, we'll have to fight with what we have. From next year, we should have limited numbers of upgrades to existing 'Mechs. The year after, new production will begin to trickle in. We don't need to crush the clans, or even to drive them back, desirable as those goals are. What we have to do is to slow them down and buy three years to upgrade our forces. That's not going to be easy - but it's a realistic goal. Anything more ambitious... isn't."

"I see that you mean what you said about a long term solution," Morgan noted.

"There is no magic bullet that will counter all their advantages," Victoria told him. "This is the reality of our production issues. Prototypes for the new equipment will take until the end of the year to produce, at best. The most optimistic projections place large scale manufacture of advanced 'Mechs in 3052, considering the dislocation of refitting our production lines. Fortunately there are some factories ready to go and the field refits should bridge the gap, but for now we're going to be fighting with what we have."

"If it isn't going to help now, then why are you bringing it up," Byran asked.

"Marshal, there's an old story about Napolean – a french dictator back around the early eighteenth century," clarifed Victoria in case someone was unfamiliar with that chapter of history. "The tale goes that he ordered trees planted along all the major roads to shade his troops as they marched. Someone objected that it would take ten years for the trees to be tall enough to do so. Napolean nodded and told him: 'Correct, so we should start right away'. If we don't start adapting to the Clans right now then we may wind up defeated before we manage it."

Morgan cleared his throat. "Your plans seem well thought out, Kommandant and I can see that you have hardly left a stone unturned in your efforts to check them – I think I've had complaints from every regiment here about your co-opting their technical personnel. However, putting your proposal into practise is beyond the scope of this conference. It will be forwarded to the correct department for evaluation, and if approved, to be expedited."

Victoria lowered her head in acceptance.  _Nothing more to say – I've gotten a lot further than I thought I would with that._  "I will hand over the next stage of the report to Leftenant Allard-Liao," she said out loud.

Kai stood and Victoria could see signs of nervousness in him, although he masked them well. "I'm told," he said, "that the Senior Officer's Group identified the same strategic problem that we did: that is, of having no way to anticipate when and where the invaders will strike. The action on the rimward area of the Commonwealth has provided us with no pattern for attacks. The first wave hit twelve planets, then the next reduced to four. It's hard to say what the logic of that is, so we decided  _not_  to try to anticipate."

There was a ripple of surprise through the room. "We all know that there is no such thing as a true interstellar front. There are sufficient stars that lack colonisable worlds that it is invariably possible for fleets and supply lines to penetrate deeply into what is considered enemy territory with very little chance of interception. Because of the risk of drive failure, most transit routes are planned through inhabited systems so help can be obtained in emergencies, but…" He looked over at his uncle. "Colonel Allard will recall, I believe, that the Kell Hounds used an uncolonised star as a recharge point twenty-three years ago in the rescue of the  _Silver Eagle_. Marshal, you and General Redburn did much the same during the First Kathil Uhlans' invasion of Sian at the end of the Fourth Succession War."

General Winton of the Eridani Light Horse shook her head impatiently. "Yes Leftenant, we are all aware of this. It's because of such systems that we have no way of knowing where the invaders will strike."

Victoria half-tensed to speak, but forced herself to relax.  _Kai doesn't need my help to do this._

"Agreed," Kai told the mercenary general. "They attack inhabited worlds because they know that we will be there to defend them, but the reverse is true: if we intend to seek battle against them, we don't have to guess at where they will attack. We know where they are." He pointed at the map of the Tamar Pact, where red stars marked out worlds fallen to the invaders. "They must assuredly have forces upon the worlds that they have already taken. Garrisons, and perhaps even supply bases. If we take the fight to them there, then they will have to reinforce those worlds, turn their offensive back to consolidate their positions… and buy the time that Kommandant Steiner-Davion has stated we will need."

Morgan nodded thoughtfully. "You're assuming that their garrisons will be inferior to their spearhead units?"

Kai shook his head. "It's not an assumption, sir. We don't have comprehensive intelligence from the conquered worlds because ComStar has cut them off, but MIIO has still managed to gather some information and in the cases where they have gathered intelligence on the rear areas, they are reporting smaller unit sizes, regular infantry not the Clans' battle armour, older 'Mechs – sometimes even reconditioned salvage from our fallen. It's unclear how wide the gap is, but there is definitely a gap."

Conversation switched to debating the merits of that information but Victoria ignored it, instead focusing on her cousin, who had similarly withdrawn from the debate, fingers steepled before him as he considered the proposal. Looking down the table, Morgan met her eyes and raised one eyebrow questioningly. Recognising the discreet enquiry, Victoria moved her hands to point slightly in Kai's direction and lowered her eyes modestly.  _No, Morgan, he's not my mouthpiece. It was his idea and I happen to support it._

Satisfied, the redheaded Marshal tapped the table with one hand, commanding attention. "Leftenant Allard-Liao's analysis and strategy are interesting, and at the very least, unusual. Not bad for just over a month of study and work. By the end of our time here, I expect a working proposal concern-" Morgan broke off as the door to the conference room opened to admit an apologetic looking staff aide, who handed him a small yellow slip of paper.

It only took Morgan a moment to absorb the message and he nodded to dismiss the aide before turning back to the table. "Our time to plan has just been curtailed, my friends," he said grimly. "I want a proposal for your plan, including recommendations for units used and targets in fourteen days, Leftenant. The invaders just hit Rasalhague."

A cold thrill went through Victoria. A third wave so soon – and striking at the capital of the Free Rasalhague Republic. The Clans were raising the stakes and it would take everything the Inner Sphere had just to stay at the table.

* * *

**Black Pearl Base, Sudeten**

**Tamar March, Lyran Commonwealth**

**21 July 3050**

In the end it took eleven days to bring the proposal to what Victoria, Kai and Galen considered an acceptable level for them to submit it to the Senior Officers' Strategy Board. Strict discipline maintained by Galen ensured that Victoria got at least five hours sleep every night but otherwise the pace was heavy enough that waiting outside the conference room as their plan was dissected and evaluated felt strange, with nothing left to do. Kai faced the wait with stoic calm, but Galen's reserve cracked enough that he walked restlessly back and forth across the antechamber.

"Don't worry, Galen," Kai offered from where he sat, next to Victoria. "The plan's a good one. It'll work and I'm sure that they'll see that."

"Says the man who tore us apart in that last simulation," noted Victoria, not looking up from the documentation she was leafing through. For a change, it wasn't military in nature – instead she was catching up with the thousand and one political hot potatoes that her parents were juggling this week. Mostly it was tedious, but there were occasional high points like hearing about her distant cousin, Conrad Davion, being assigned as a military attache to the Free Worlds League. "Wasn't that your idea, Galen?"

"It was supposed to be a worst case scenario," Galen argued, half-preparing himself for similar commentary from the officers inside the briefing room. "And I have to admit, you came through there," he admitted, looking at Kai.

"Victoria managed to escape offplanet with one intact regiment," the Leftenant disagreed. "Given that that particular simulation had everything conceivable go wrong even before I did anything – extreme weather scattering your landings and causing heavy losses – enemy numbers in a larger concentration than we've seen anywhere in the invasion so far… Well, I was impressed that you managed that much, and let's be brutally honest: the information obtained even in a near-disaster like that would be worth the losses."

Victoria shrugged off the praise. "I had very little to do with it," she noted, declining to comment on the cold – but necessary – dismissal of thousands of casualties as acceptable. "Let's be honest - we didn't pick our target because we could hold it so sooner or later we'll have to retreat anyway. I'd rather practise that now."

"However long we can hold it," said Kai. "I've no doubts that it'll slow the Jade Falcon's advance in the future."

"You have no doubts, I have no doubts, but that leaves -"

Galen was cut off as the door to the briefing room slid open to reveal General Andrew Redburn. "We have some questions about your plan," he told them. "If you will accompany me…"

Victoria dog-eared her place in the reports and closed the folder, tucking it under one arm before following Redburn inside. Redburn returned to his seat next to Morgan on the far side of the large square table from the seats that had been left open for the three junior officers. Various unit commanders sat along the sides of the table, mostly still engrossed in studying the proposed counterattack.

Morgan closed the cover of his copy of the battleplan, drumming his fingers against it for a moment. "Before we start, I'd like to say that all of us are impressed with the extent of the work that you and your team have put into this document. It is clear and concise. We especially appreciate the extensive adversarial testing you did on it and the number of contingencies included for aborting the operation if need be. This is work I would have expected from a cabal of hoary old veterans, not young officers like yourselves. Commendations have been recorded for those who contributed in this effort."

"Very kind of you, sir," Victoria observed coolly. "I gather, however, that the proposed plan of action is not entirely satisfactory?"

The Marshal nodded solemnly. "Your plan calls for the allocation of both Kell Hound regiments and two RCTs, the Ninth Federated-Commonwealth and the Tenth Lyran Guards," he pointed out in a low voice. "Moving those units and the necessary support material and personnel will take forty-five percent of oour available JumpShip and Dropship resources, That severely limits my ability to move forces to the worlds the invaders are likely to hit in the next wave."

Victoria nodded. "I consider that to be one of the more substantial benefits to the plan."

"Would you care to expand upon that point, Kommandant?" asked Sharon Byran snidely.

"Of course," she replied. "The reasoning is quite simple: as we cannot predict where they attack, we cannot concentrate sufficent forces to prevent them from taking their objectives. Therefore units committed to that purpose will at best be left sidelined and at worst will be fighting the invaders on their terms, not ours. While it is politically necessary to commit those forces anyway, at this stage any gains in time and attrition of the invaders numbers are not in proportion to what we will lose. Minimising the number of troops in that situation, with the politically acceptable excuse that the shipping is needed for a counter attack, is in my view desirable."

"You're just writing off dozens of worlds," Byran snapped, half-standing.

Victoria did not rise to the bait. "The goal of my strategy is to defeat the Clans. If that means trading space for time… so be it. We can retake worlds, Marshal, once we are ready. But right now, regrettably, we cannot hold them off. Throwing troops away in vain attempt to stop the Clans head on is not a valid strategy."

"That's enough, both of you," Morgan said firmly. He waited until the commander of the Eleventh Lyran Guards had returned to her seat before continuing. "I do not entirely agree with your logic, Kommandant, but the argument is noted. Moving along to the next point: what are your reasons for selecting these units for the operation?"

Galen spoke up. "The Kell Hounds were selected because they are one of the best multi-regiment forces available, meaning no disrespect to the Eridani Light Horse," he added with a nod to General Winston. "And they are also extremely motivated to fight the Clans, given their previous encounter with Clan Wolf last year in the Periphery. The Ninth Federated-Commonwealth and the Tenth Lyran Guards are less seasoned but as relatively newly formed units, their equipment is largely newer, if not more advanced, than those of other units. Unless the opposition is drastically more numerous or capable than intelligence reports suggest, this would give them a relatively less risky blooding against the Clans."

"There is also a further rationale behind including the Tenth Lyran Guards," Victoria pointed out. She grimaced. "This plan is strongly associated with me. While I believe it to be less risky than a defensive strategy, if I wasn't willing to risk myself by participating, then the morale of the units sent will suffer. My presence indicates my confidence in the operation: while the troops might harbor concerns about my competence, those will be far less of a concern than if they believe I will send troops out to fight and not be willing to share their risks."

"And if I order the Tenth Lyran Guards to stay here on Sudeten, while the Eleventh Guards replace them in the plan?" Morgan asked.

Victoria shrugged. "I advise against that, Marshal, but ultimately that would be your decision to make." She met his gaze evenly. "It is my duty both to give you my advice and to obey your orders whether you take that advice or not."

"I agree with the plan," Dan Allard said from his seat next to General Winton. "And so do all the Kell Hounds senior officers. Janos Vandermeer -" Captain of the Kell Hounds' long-serving jumpship "- assures me that there is a viable pirate point deep in the system that will allow us to avoid the Zenith and Nadir points that might be guarded by Clan warships."

Saying nothing, Morgan steepled his fingers, a gesture that Victoria recognised as an indication that he was weighing options that he found unpalatable. She met his silence with composure, meeting his questioning gaze with as much confidence as she could muster.

"You've made your case in very coldblooded terms," the Marshal said at last. "I hope that you will be equally coldblooded in recognising if it is time to abandon your plan and withdraw."

"You're approving the plan?" asked Hauptmann-General Andrea Kaulkas, the commander of the Tenth Lyran Guards.

Morgan nodded. "I am. The plan's the best of all the options we've considered, but it isn't flawless. I want the following revisions. Increase ammunition supplies by another twenty percent and rewrite the rules of engagement with greater stress on avoiding civilian casualties. And Victoria, you are personally to prepare papers indemnifying the Kell Hounds for losses on this mission."

Victoria nodded, noting down the requirements.

"Colonel Allard will act as force commander, Victoria, but I'm making you responsible for the lives of every man and woman on this mission – in these regiments, in the local guerilla forces on Somerset and in your cousin Adam's volunteer force." He stared at her bleakly. "Think of it a taste of the burden you will assume when you take the throne."


	4. Chapter 4

**Jumpship** _**Meschach** _ **, Camelot Command, Dark Nebula**

**Tamar March, Lyran Commonwealth**

**16 September 3050**

"Blake's Blood," Hauptmann Miles Hawkins exclaimed as the shuttle carrying the Somerset Strikers' command team approached the flotilla of jumpships that had appeared only an hour ago near the abandoned Star League facility. "When your cousin said she'd brought the cavalry, she wasn't kidding."

"I had my doubts when she signalled us to meet her here, Hawk," Kommandant Adam Steiner admitted. "But I have to give her credit: she must have done some fast talking to persuade her parents that they should let come out here to the middle of the occupied worlds with an army like that."

"I guess the little princess wouldn't be allowed out without that many people to defend her," Hawk grumbled. "No offense, Kommandant, but she's just what I thought you were at first: a noble brat who got her rank because of her parents."

"She graduated near the top of her class at the Nagelring," objected Adam's aide, Leftenant Rachel Spector, as the shuttle closed towards the small bay of the jumpship they had been ordered to report aboard. The junior officer in the little deputation had taught there alongside Adam in the dim and distant days before the Clans arrived – all of six months now. "In fact, she was in same class as Ciro."

Hawk's face twisted bitterly and he resisted the urge to spit. "Yeah, well that says everything in my book," he retorted and an uneasy silence filled the shuttle. They had been mourning the apparent death of the young leftenant Ciro Rameriz when they last encountered the Princess of the Federated Commonwealth, herself retreating to Sudeten after the defeat of her regiment on Trell One. Now when they met her they would have to report that her classmate's status had changed from Killed in Action to one far more sinister: traitor!

"It's a troubling thought," volunteered the only passenger in the compartment who was not part of the Armed Forces of the Federated Commonwealth. "And the consequences would be far reaching if Prince Hohiro of the Draconis Combine – or an individual of equal rank – were to be persuaded similarly while in captivity."

Adam flinched. The last reports from Somerset suggested that his older brother Andrew was a prisoner of the same Clan, the Jade Falcons, who had induced Ciro to defect. And if Victoria Steiner-Davion were to change sides, then the repercussions could tear the Federated Commonwealth apart, just as a movement within the Draconis Combine had tried to raise up a pretender to that throne while Hohiro Kurita languished in a Smoke Jaguar prison. "We can't let that happen," he replied, sharing a significant look with the man who had spoken.

Franklin Sakamoto was the man who those Combine revolutionaries had seen as their prospective puppet – and when he rejected the role, it was Adam who had risked the Striker's mission: the return to Somerset, to rescue Franklin from both the betrayed rebels and from the Combine's Internal Security Force, who were of the firm opinion that the bastardborn grandson of Takashi Kurita was a loose end better cut off forever. Now he sat back in his seat, closing his eyes as the shuttle settled into the clamps that held it secure within the bay. No pilot – and Franklin was a good one – enjoyed being passenger to another, but Adam had to wonder if there was another reason that the engimatic merchant had broken off eye contact.

The boatbay crew of the jumpship were obviously a well practised team for it was less than two minutes before the hatch cracked open and Adam was able to lead his people out and onto the deck where a greeting party were assembling, led by a familiar looking redhead.

"Welcome aboard the  _Meschach_ ," Victoria Steiner-Davion greeted them. "I hope we didn't call you away from anything important."

Adam shook his head. "We were just one jump away from getting back to Somerset, but you're not the first person to interrupt us at that point."

Victoria chuckled. "So I gather. Anyway, introduction time: I'm sure that you all remember Hauptmann Cox," she said, waving to him. "The handsome devil beside him is Leftenant Kai Allard, an old friend from NAIS. Kai, this is my cousin Kommandant Adam Steiner who taught at the Nagelring during my final year there. Leftenant Rachel Spector, his Tactical Officer; Hauptmann Miles Hawkins, lance commander; and Franklin Sakamoto… entrepeneur."

"Entrepreneur?" Kai asked.

Galen chuckled darkly. "I think her highness is too kind. The word is 'smuggler'."

"A useful person to know, when one seeks to move without notice," observed Kai equably, eyeing the other asian's calloused hands and stance. He said nothing about any other conclusions that he was drawing though.

"I'm pleased to meet you," Adam offered Kai his hand. "A little mystified as to why you're all out here, but pleased."

A smile crossed Victoria's face. "You didn't think I'd forgotten you, did you?" she asked. "I didn't send you a message to meet here to prevent you from reaching Somerset… I'm just inviting myself and a few friends along."

Adam's eyes went wide but it was Rachel who was the first of the Strikers to respond. "A few friends? You've got enough ships here for two regimental combat teams."

"Well estimated, Leftenant. That's exactly what I've brought: the Tenth Lyran Guards and the Ninth Federated Commonwealth, along with both regiments of the Kell Hounds. I can't promise we can hold Somerset forever, but we've got over four hundred 'Mechs, six hundred tanks, more infantry and sharp sticks than I can count – I wouldn't be surprised if there was a nuclear weapon stashed in some dark corner – so we can make a pretty good go of it."

The Strikers mood was already shifting as she spoke. "Sounds like Clan Jade Falcon's going to have a bellyache soon," Hawk chuckled.

Franklin nodded slowly. "One thing concerns me, Princess Steiner-Davion," he said thoughtfully. "With such a formidable force, why did you arrange to also include the Strikers? Surely one company would make little difference to your plans?"

"Sharp," Galen noted. "Let's just say that Victoria remembered something that your fearless leader always says."

"'Information is ammunition'?" Hawkins quoted disgustedly.

Victoria chuckled. "If he starts loading ammunition into his head, remember to get pictures," she joked. "But there's some merit to that: while I have some reports smuggled from Somerset by the Intelligence Secretariat, there's nothing like having someone on the ground. Like, say a company of Mechwarriors most of whom come from the planet in the first place…"

Adam folded his arms thoughtfully. "What do you have in mind?" he asked, mind already working.

His distant cousin gestured towards the hatch leading deeper into the jumpship. "Let's go talk this over on the  _Barbarossa_. It'll be easier to brief you with a proper tactical display."

* * *

**Dropship** _**Barbarossa** _ **, Camelot Command, Dark Nebula**

**Tamar March, Lyran Commonwealth**

**24 September 3050**

Victoria awoke the instant the hatch to her stateroom slid open, spilling light from the corridor into the compact chamber. Her fingers tightened around the butt of the Mauser and Gray holdout under her pillow for a moment before she recognised Galen silhouetted against the light. " _Katana_?" she asked, looking automatically at the red numerals on the bedside clock, set to Somerset's clock and Somerset Military Academy's timezone. The sun would be setting there soon.

"We got a fax," Galen nodded. "Phase One is a success."

Pushing aside her blanket, Victoria scrambled out of the bunk. With the entire force on a high readiness, she'd slept in her mechwarrior shorts and undershirt, so it was the work of a moment to pull on her boots and start buckling her field kit on, slipping the small pistol into its waterproof holster. "Are there any changes to the schedule?"

Galen shook his head. "Colonel Allard wants full status checks in one hour for all units. That's still the final deadline: After that, we can jump at any time. No turning back."

"Adam and his people are on their way down to Somerset on a captured dropship," Victoria said flatly. "They're already past the point of no return. If we break off – if I abandon them – then they'll never get off Somerset again."

The blond mechwarrior nodded. "I understand, Kommandant. But one of the reasons he's going ahead is so that we can be warned if the situation is not as we expect. He wouldn't want you to do anything foolish if to try to rescue him."

Victoria ran her fingers through her red hair. It was getting longer and she chided herself for not taking the time to cut it back on Sudeten. "I'm aware of that, Galen. And I've no intention of writing letters to the next of kin for any more of our boys and girls than I have to. But I haven't come this far to fail either."

Pulling a on a loose jumpsuit over her mechwarrior gear she was still zipping it as she joined him at the door. "Let's get our people mounted up. We might have time to get ready between the jump point and the landing zone… but only if things go to plan."

"I take it that the Nagelring teaches the first law of battles then?" Galen chuckled.

"'The enemy's first target is your plan'?" Victoria asked as they descended the cramped stairwell between the quarters for the  _Barbarossa_ 's onboard Mechwarriors and the bunkrooms installed nearby. Although an  _Overlord_ -class transport typically carried thirty-six BattleMechs, the forty-strong battalions of the Tenth Lyran Guards' Mech regiment had overspilled, forcing them to divide themselves between four of the ships and while the other two battalions had managed to remain mostly concentrated, with only a lance each detached to share Leftenant General Milstein's _Command Overlord_ , Victoria had had to detach an entire company to fit her battalion aboard the  _Barbarossa_ , which had been stripped of eight mechbays years ago, making room for an infantry battalion.

"Well that's not quite the way it was phrased at the Tamar War College," Galen admitted, "But I think you've got the same idea." He banged his fist against the hatch of Hauptmann Rachel Meisler's stateroom while Victoria did the same for Hauptmann Charlie Krautmann, waking the two company commanders.

"Full readiness report in an hour," Victoria told them briskly once the two officers were awake and at their doors. "Have everyone mounted up and ready to go in forty. And..." She broke off and looked up as a grizzled infantryman wearing the triangular markings of a sergeant major started down the stairs. "And make sure that any of Kommandant Riley's boys and girls are returned to their unit," she added. A young infantryman had missed his bunk inspection and been found asleep with one of her Mechwarriors the previous month. The demerits for both of them had probably been less painful than the jokes at the couple's expense. "Has Kommandant Riley been brought up to date?" Victoria asked the sergeant major.

"He has, Kommandant Davion," the man confirmed, sidling past the little group while they edged over to give him space.

"See you on the Mechdecks in forty then," Victoria told her officers and headed for the next flight of stairs. As she walked she could not help but to review what was going less than thirty light years away on Somerset.

Rather than executing a combat drop on the academy, which intelligence had pinpointed as being the nervecentre of the plant's defences under the Jade Falcons, just as it had been for the Federated Commonwealth, Adam had come up with a better plan: seize one of the dropships being used by the Clan's to collect salvage from the brief orbital battle that had preceded the Jade Falcon's landing. The dropship could be used to ferry down two teams picked from the Somerset Strikers, one to infiltrate the Academy and sabotage the early warning system that could alert the Jade Falcons to the arrival of the Federated Commonwealth army, and the other equipped with the prototype battle armour they had been testing against the Clans, to disrupt the defenders on site.

Familiar with the academy from his own days there, Adam Steiner had insisted on leading the first team, with the second under the command of Franklin Sakamoto. Victoria was sure that the decision had as much to do with the other use of Somerset Military Academy: a prison camp for captured AFFC soldiers who had refused to assimilate into the Clans. The Federated Commonwealth owed those brave men and women, and Victoria intended to repay them for their loyalty.

Parting ways from Galen, Victoria took advantage of the zero-gravity of the  _Barbarossa_  as it lay docked to the  _Meschach_ , and simply kicked off from the deck, sending herself flying across the lower deck, fast but not uncontrollably so as she ascended, catching hold of the railing on the gantry that pinned her  _Marauder_  into place while the dropship manuvered. Only a moment behind her, Galen was heading for his  _Crusader_  and on the other side of her, Mechwarrior David Jewell was boarding a  _Wolverine_. Probably Galen had alerted the rest of the command lance before waking her – taking the initiative like a good aide should.

Sliding into the hatch of her 'Mech, Victoria began to run through the readiness checks. She'd have to be ready before most of her Mechwarriors, to assimilate the reports of her subordinates and make her own to General Milstein, so best to start now. Once the  _Meschach_  and the other jumpships delivered the flotilla to Somerset's orbit, the dropships would be making for their landing sites immediately – and if trouble arose, any of the force's battalions might be called on to execute combat drops to secure those landing sites ahead of the dropships' arrival.

* * *

**Somerset Military Academy, Somerset**

**Tamar March, Lyran Commonwealth**

**25 September 3050**

Victoria's first view of Somerset Military Academy was as she marched her  _Marauder_  down the ramp and out of the  _Barbarossa_. Dramatic as it might have been for her to lead the combat drop personally, the vanguard regiment had been the Second Kell Hounds. "I like what Adam's done with the place," she observed, pointing with one weapon pod at the Federated Commonwealth flag flapping in the morning light over the buildings.

"It adds a certain something," agreed Galen as he followed in his  _Crusader_. "As do those heaps." He used one of his 'Mech's hands to indicate the still smoking wreckage of the handful of Clan 'Mechs that had been posted here at the Academy before the  _Kwaidan_  landed the Strikers 'Mechs to complete the capture of the facility.

"Oh I like them," Victora concurred. "Check that they get loaded onto one of the dropships – we'll want as much salvage as we can get while we're here. One  _Vidar_ , a pair of  _Freya_  and… haven't seen them before but those two look like  _Hunchback_ s, except for having two cannon. That's a good start – damn good work by Adam." She said nothing about the other 'Mechs on the ground, clearly having fallen in the process of overcoming resistance.

Already infantrymen swarming out of the  _Barbarossa_  were joining forces with men and women in the tattered remnants of cadet uniforms, taking control of the campus and herding prisoners into improvised cells. Standing protectively over the students were the Somerset Strikers' surviving BattleMechs. She could see Adam's  _Axman_  next to the old  _Awesome_  he'd piloted at the academy and wondered who Adam had tapped to pilot the older 'Mech. Completing the remnant lance were Hawkins'  _Daboku_ , captured during the War of 3039 she had learned, and a  _Bushwhacker_  – one of the handful of advanced prototypes given to Adam for evaluation in the field. Although battered, the medium 'Mech had survived the fierce battle without serious damage, which spoke well of it.

"Welcome to Somerset, your highness," Adam's voice greeted her across the local communication frequency. "As you can see, the reception was a little warmer than we had hoped."

"Did you lose anyone?"

Adam's voice was relieved. "No one's dead, although a couple will need a few weeks in the medical bay. There were some close calls though."

"You've got to be kidding me!" another voice cut in. "What idiot let little Vicky Steiner-Davion get anywhere near the Clans?"

"Excuse me?" Victoria asked sweetly. "'Let'? What colour is the sky in your universe,  _attardé_?"

"Yeah, well I don't speak Davion, princess, but the way I hear it you got your butt spanked on Trell One and ran away."

Adam coughed. "Your highness, may I present my brother, Kommandant Andrew Steiner, who isn't exactly up to speed on things yet." His microphone cut out for a moment and Victoria could hear his voice relayed via his brother's microphone, clearly directed by a private channel. "Andrew, she's the one who convinced the Archon to launch a counterattack. Without her you'd still be rotting in a cell."

Victoria checked her status board. Both companies from the  _Barbarossa_  were fanning out around her position, and the company that had been with General Milstein were now making their way towards the location. Thus far everything was going to plan.  _What the hell is Murphy up to? If a problem hasn't arisen yet then whatever does go wrong, it's going to be a doozey,_  she thought. The possibility that nothing would go wrong was too remote to even consider: this was a professional military operation. "I wasn't expecting you to do all the hard work, Adam. Give me a quick rundown."

The younger of the two Steiner brothers –  _Which could get confusing: three Kommandant Steiners in close proximity._  – opened his microphone again. "We infiltrated Somerset without difficulty," he reported. "No one suspected a thing when we entered the camp, pretending to be Clan military police transporting new prisoners and a technical crew combing through the Academy's facilities for salvage. Unfortunately, when the orbital sensor net was disabled the 'technical crew' were called in to repair it and the base commander recognised them."

"An old friend?" Victoria asked him.

"Kristen Redmond. Her rank is Star Colonel but she'd been posted here in disgrace after we held her captive for a while earlier this year," Adam explained. "She's locked up with the other prisoners for now. Anyway, she guessed I wouldn't have sent them in alone so she set them up to be executed and threatened to do so if I didn't come forward."

"That's when he called in his friends in the shiny armour," Andrew cut in. "I haven't seen a better sight in some time – except for the family  _Awesome_  perhaps."

"I take it Sakamoto-san and his team managed to keep things from boiling over until the  _Kwaidan_  landed and your Mechs could join the fun," Victoria pieced together. "Good work. Still, there have to be more than five 'Mechs on the planet."

"Thirty to forty," Andrew confirmed. "Their main base is near Old Exeter, almost sixty kilometers away."

"That means they could be here any time," Galen realised. "They have to know that something's going on here by now."

"We'll assume so," Victoria told him and checked her tactical displays. "Second Kell Hounds are providing a good perimeter for the LZ but I'll advise General Kaulkas to have the 19th Tharkad Cavalry Regiment move out to screen the routes from the city towards us."

"They're already moving out, Kommandant," the Hauptmann-General advised her, cutting onto the channel directly. "But good thinking. I'm assigning your battalion to hold the Academy while the Strikers load their salvage and get every bit of intelligence they can. Get all the cadets ready to board the dropships as well in case things go sour."

"Your orders are understood," Victoria confirmed, unsurprised. The operation would never have been accepted if it had put her in obvious danger: if nothing else, it would have reeked of showboating. As the least experienced regiment, the Lyran Guards were acting as the main reserve force and covering the LZ was the sort of necessary but boring work that could be done while they waited to be called in.

Andrew Steiner seemed amused by the posting however. "You know anyone would think that the Kell Hounds didn't trust her on their flanks," he observed to his brother, apparently ignoring the fact that the frequency was an open one that every officer in Victoria's battalion was listening too, in case the Strikers needed to call in one of their 'Mechs to help with moving something heavy.

It was not necessary to defend herself however, as someone else jumped to her defense. "She's got as many kills against the Clans as you do, Andrew Steiner," snapped Rachel Spector from somewhere out of sight. "And the Kell Hounds don't just trust her with their flank, they're trusting her to cover their backs in case you hadn't noticed while you were complaining. I don't know what's got into you!"

There was an embarassed silence on the communications frequency before Franklin Sakamoto diplomatically changed the subject, requiring assistance in loading one of the fallen Clan Mechs onto a heavy trailer.

"It's quiet," Galen observed quietly on a private channel after an hour. "I can't believe that the Clans haven't realised that we're here yet."

"I  _don't_  believe it," agreed Victoria. "Which means that they're probably not going to conveniently run headlong into the Kell Hounds like a band of antiquated samurai. They're thinking."

Galen chuckled humourlessly. "Wasn't that what made Theodore Kurita's new regiments so dangerous? Thinking?"

In her cockpit Victoria frowned and then switched over the the Strikers' command channel. "Adam, I've got a suspicion that the Clans are getting sneaky. How fast could you get the orbital sensor net up and running?"

"The orbital net?" Adam asked in surprise. "You think… actually, you're right. I'll find out."

A light lit up on Victoria's console. "Get back to me, Adam," she ordered and changed channel. "Kommandant Steiner-Davion here," she responded to the signal.

"It's Janos Vandermeer," crackled the voice of the Kell Hound's long standing jumpship commander. "I'm relaying this through the  _Nuada Argetlan_ ," he added to clarify why the signal was from a ground station and not the jumpship flotilla in orbit. "We're picking up something big up here and it's heading in your general direction. Best guess is that it knows we're here and doesn't want you to reach us."

"When you say big, Captain, how big do you mean?" Victoria asked with a sinking sensation.  _Tell me it's just a dropship._

Vandermeer's voice was resigned. "Best estimate is twelve hundred meters long and it's not exactly built like a needle. Simple maths puts it at a megatonne easy."

"Understood Captain." Victoria bit back several swear words. It would be a week before the jumpships were ready to go anywhere and that meant that they would be easy prey. So easy that the Clans probably expected to simply pick them off once the ground troops were dealt with. "I'll do what I can."

_A warship. And it sounds like a big brute – not many of those were more than a kilometre long. Probably manuvering for a geostationary orbit over the Academy._

"Kommandant Steiner-Davion to all officers," she announced on the local broadcast. "The weather report just came back with an increased chance of raining Clan 'Mechs and orbital artillery."

* * *

The sound of cannon and PPC fire could be made out in the distance, from where the Kell Hounds and the Ninth Federated Commonwealth RCT had boxed in the Clan's garrison – more or less a battalion force of Mechs and infantry – on three sides. Outnumbered nine to one, the Clanners were fighting stubbornly but even their technical advantages weren't doing more than delaying the inevitable.

The mood on the Task Force command channel was not triumphant however. "At best we're trapped here," Leftenant General Milstein commented bitterly. "Even if the ship isn't carrying any ground troops, we can't leave Somerset while it's in orbit so it's only a matter of time until they bring in reinforcements."

"Given that diverting forces from the frontlines is one of the principal reasons for attacking Somerset, that would constitute a significant gain for the Federated Commonwealth," Victoria pointed out. "Now we just have to survive the consequences of our success."

Colonel Allard cleared his throat. "Now that we've defined the problem, we need a solution," he told them. He was speaking from his  _Wolfhound_ , just behind the frontlines and the sounds of the battlefield could be heard in the background. "General Kaulkas, we're going to be relying on the Tenth Guards to watch our backs while we finish off the garrison. If the Falcons land reinforcements, I need you ready to react immediately. In the meantime, we've got better than a hundred and seventy aerospace fighters between us. Effective immediately, I'm pulling them together into a single force under Major Kirk. Losing our air cover might hurt us down here, but not as much as holding back up in orbit could."

"Colonel," Victoria offered. "May I recommend activating Contingency Tall White Hat from the operations plan?"

There was a long pause – hesitation, she presumed, although it was possible that several officers were looking up that option to verify that she was suggesting what they thought.

"Desperate times demand desperate measures," Allard concurred reluctantly. "Very well, Kommandant. Co-ordinate it with Rob Kirk."

* * *

"What's so important that you have to pull me away from the Strikers?" Adam demanded as he dismounted from his 'Mech. "We need to prepare our defenses before the Jade Falcons drop more troops."

Victoria gestured towards the dropship that her  _Marauder_  and now Adam's  _Axman_  were standing outside of. This part of the landing field was occupied mostly by aerodyne-models that needed lengthy runways to take off and land, so naturally it was also occupied by most of the task force's aerospace squadrons, whose fighters had the same requirements. "I'll tell you inside," she said, and jogged up the steps leading to the hatch of the  _Leopard_ -class dropship.

To Adam's surprise, Victoria did not lead turn left after entering the hatch, which would have led to the battlemech bays. Instead she went up a deck, into the fighter bays.

"Hi Adam," a familiar voice called in greeting as the two officers entered the room. "Oh, sorry," the irrepressable Katiara Kylie corrected herself, interpreting his frown as being directed at her. "Kommandant Steiner and Kommandant Steiner-Davion, Sergeant Kylie reporting." She saluted sloppily.

Victoria chuckled grimly. "At ease sergeant. No problems with your fighter?"

"No ma'am," Kylie confirmed, gesturing at the ancient  _Shilone_  that lay behind her, a ground crew refuelling it. "A bit puzzled at why I'm in here and not outside flying cover… but I'm good to go, any time."

"I take it that this is part of your Contingency Tall White Hat," Adam asked.

"I guess you didn't have a chance to go through the full operations plan before you jumped into the Somerset system," Victoria observed. "Keeping it short then, it's the contingency for the presence of a Clan warship turning up in orbit."

Kylie's eyes went wide. "You have a plan for that!?"

"After Romulus City, it was sort of a priority," observed Victoria wryly, although there was nothing funny about the subject to her mind. The Jade Falcons had responded to an uprising on Romulus by bombarding the planetary capital from orbit with one of their warships. The death toll had been hideous. And unconfirmed reports from the Draconis Combine suggested a similar atrocity had taken place on the planet of Turtle Bay. "And we have plans for everything from Aleksandr Kerensky's legions returning to help us to finding out that Clan Mechs are piloted by green feathered parrots."

"So what's your plan for this?" Adam enquired curiously. "It's not like you have a warship to pit against them… you don't, do you?"

"I wish. No. Do you recall when you met up with us at Camelot Command and I made a joke about how well equipped we were?"

"Everything from sharp sticks to…" Adam paled. "Blake's blood," he whispered.

Victoria nodded solemnly, Kylie staring at them in confusion. "As I said: I wouldn't be surprised to find that we brought a nuclear weapon along… I'd be surprised if we didn't, given that I have the release codes for it."

"Oh wow, big bang," exclaimed Kylie with a whistle.

 _Was I ever that young?_  Victoria wondered, with a sidelong glance at Adam, then remembered that according to her file, Kylie – barely out of her teens – was only six months younger than she was. If the girl hadn't wrangled her way into the Strikers, she would still be in her final year at the Nagelring. "I just hope it's big enough," she said out loud. "We only have the one, so it's up to you to make sure that it isn't wasted," she told the young pilot.

Kylie squeaked. "Me?" Her face paled abruptly despite her olive complexion.

"Adam tells me you're one of the best ground support pilots he's seen in a long while. Your skills have kept the Strikers alive for the long journey here. Now we need you to do that one more time."

"What if I screw up?"

Victoria reached up and patted Kylie on the shoulder. "Don't." She turned to Adam. "I need another field grade officer to counter-authorise my release codes. Your Commonwealth identification number should do it." She gestured towards the other hanger, which was clearly not occupied by a fighter but instead by an anonymous bulk cargo container, securely anchored.

"The plan is fairly straightforward. As soon as they commit their fighters – probably to cover dropping 'Mechs - we'll launch a massed attack with all eight fighter wings. You'll be in the first wave, Kylie. Their entire job is to make sure you reach the target safely. Your primary target is the ship's engines – if that doesn't destroy it then it should hopefully prevent it from manuvering, which should let us avoid it as we come and go from Somerset."

"Do you know what it is yet?" Kylie asked, suddenly serious. "I mean, if it's a serious flak-wagon then there will be a lot of casualties."

"Closest match the warbooks can come up with is an old SLDF battleship -  _Texas_ -class if that means anything to you. It doesn't mention anti-fighter capability one way or another," Victoria told her bluntly. She clapped Kylie on the shoulder. "And it doesn't matter if it does or it doesn't."

"You could lose every fighter we have," Kylie protested. "I don't think you know what a ship that big could be having."

"I'm fully aware of the potential weapons load of a ship massing a megaton and a half," retorted Victoria. "It isn't a factor because as long as that ship's up there the Task Force is effectively lost. Which means that the aerospace brigades have to go in, regardless of the danger. It's the only way – unless, of course," and her eyes narrowed dangerously "- you're suggesting that we lay down our arms and surrender Somerset?"

"Hell no!" the Somerset native protested sharply. "You give me that nuke, your highness and I'll take it's fuckin' legs out. Guarenteed."

"Good. Come on, Adam. Let's get the Sergeant her candy and see if she can feed it to the baby up there."

Adam Steiner gave his cousin's back a look that mixed respect and concern as she led him over to the container. "A little harsh there, don't you think?"

"I'm trusting her with a nuclear weapon. I think I'm entitled to check her mental stability. It's not like anyone's going to be in the cockpit to ride herd upon her."

* * *

Victoria was pleased to be back in her cockpit before the next development. The Falcons were forcing the pace at the moment, with the Somerset Task Force on the ground forced into reacting to their movements in orbit. That wasn't desirable, but at least they weren't being forced to rush.

"Blizzard Six, we have two dropships and approximately two wings of aerospace fighters making a high orbital pass over the area," reported an unfamiliar voice. A sideband on Victoria's command console identified the signal as coming from the dropship being used as a command post for the air defenses over the Academy. "Probably – correction, we have multiple seperations. They are dropping Mechs and infantry. The fighters are splitting, looks like half will stay with the dropships and half cover the dropping forces."

"Understood, Mechs and Infantry executing orbital drop, with cover. Thanks for the heads up," she told the officer. Kylie's Shilone was just exiting the dropship hanger, a crane lowering it onto the improvised taxi-way that flanked the small dropship. Beneath the heavy fighter, a single ominous piece of ordnance was visible. Of course, it might be her own knowledge of its nature that was bothering Victoria, as no one else seemed terribly excited by it.

She flipped the channel over to the aerospace command. "Major Kirk, this is Blizzard Six. The Hat is on the field and I am releasing command to you."

There was a crackle on the line. "Confirmed, Blizzard Six. I have the hat." Or in less opaque terms, command authority over the nuclear weapon had just been delegated to the mercenary pilot.

"I'd wish you a clear sky, Major, but we all know what's up there. Good luck."

Kirk's voice was amused, showing no sign of apprehension. "You just watch your upstairs, Blizzard Six. We won't be there to keep the buzzards off of you."

Victoria chuckled. "We'll try to keep it together without you." She flipped the channel to her command channel. "Right then boys and girls, mount 'em up and roll them out. We've got company on its way. Tracking, what do you have projected as their drop zone?"

"Transmitting now," the air defense officer advised and a diagram popped up on a secondary display, cones spreading across the map of the area, each shrinking as the 'Mechs and infantry descended, options cutting off. Triangulation from dozens of radars – dropships, air defense Mechs and portable field units – was narrowing down the drop zone and it looked like it was going to be almost on top of the Academy.

"Now that's just insulting," Victoria noted, looking at where the incoming Mechs were expected to be, matching it up to suitable areas that the Clans would probably try to use. There was only one that made sense, but it was so obvious that she had trouble believing it. "Are they really that arrogant?"

"Some of them are," Adam confirmed, moving what remained of the Strikers up to support her command lance. "And that looks like a full cluster – whoever it is hasn't bargained down his force, he's going to hit us with everything he has."

Victoria looked at the open plain that wrapped around the campus on two sides, previously used for manuvers by the Academy and now about to receive a force unlikely to be using training settings on their Mechs. "Well, I suppose we don't have to worry about them calling in reserves then," she decided and punched the button for the RCT command channel. "This is Blizzard Six to all Storm commanders. Looks like my position is the target. I'll use my battalion, the Strikers, the 339th and the Artillery Group as an anvil, the rest of the RCT plays hammer. Confirmed?"

"Storm Five to Blizzard Six," Milstein's voice cut across the channel. "Negative. You'll be fighting them at even numbers and that's not viable. Fall back on the Dropships – their firepower should hold them back until we can rally to your positions."

"Storm Five, they can stand back and fire at the dropships from outside our range," Victoria snapped. "In the Academy they'll have to enter close quarters. We can hold them long enough for you to pin them." She looked at the display again. "They're dropping too close: if we fall back now we'll just be showing our backs."

"That's enough, both of you," Hauptmann General Kaulkas voice snapped out on the command band. "Blizzard Six, your plan is approved. Storm Five, get the Thundering Elephants moving. If we're going to 'play hammer' then we'll need the momentum."

"Acknowledged," responded Victoria and punched a private channel through to Leftenant General Foreman of the 339th Donegal Heavy Armor Regiment, which had been held back to defend the landing site. "General, I recommend getting your  _Demolisher_ s inside the campus walls and pushing the  _Schrek_ s out to cover the enemy LZ."

Mara Foreman's response was crackly and interspersed with jolts as her tank crossed rough ground. "Concur, Kommandant. I'm heading out that way. Until I get my  _Schrek_ s back to the walls, you have command of the  _Demolisher_ s."

In the sky above the academy, aerospace fighters roared overhead, squadron after squadron forming up and then beginning to climb, joining the column of contrails reaching up towards orbit. "I should probably think of something profound to say," Victoria noted. "But who wants to hear that? No heroics, boys and girls. Fire by lance, don't engage them one on one unless you have to."

She could see the glowing trails now of the re-entry pods peeling away from their burdens.

* * *

Pacing along the positions of her battalion, Victoria watched icons creep across her tactical display as units fanned out. The other subcommands of the 10th Lyran Guards were manuvering to flank the anticipated landing zone, still sharpening up on the display as the falling Clanners were now beginning to reach the range where individual units could be predicted with some pretense of precision.

Of course, that was the point when the fun started as aerospace fighters dived past their compatriot 'Mechs, drawing attention away from the vulnerable ground units as they began to plaster the defenses with their weapons. Crackling PPC bolts criss-crossed the air above the Academy as the  _Schrek_ s outside exchanged fire with the fighters, tracer rounds from autocannon joining in as the _Partisan_ s of one of the few dedicated air defense lances brought their turrets to bear on the fast moving targets.

"Blizzard Six to all Blizzard units," Victoria snapped, seeing a  _Rifleman_  begin to twist its torso towards a low flying fighter. "Concentrate your fire upon the Mechs." There was an explosion from off to her right and she spared just barely enough time to see that it was an ammo truck that had been racing to resupply something. Shame, but at least it wasn't one of the combat units.

Matching action to words, she brought her  _Marauder_  to a halt and locked the targeting computer onto one of the falling shapes. It was more or less irrelevant – even with data being fed from a dozen tracking stations, the computer just wasn't up to calculating the trajectories for something that distant and unpredictable now that the Clanners were firing their jump jets and supplementary packs in order to slow their fall, but someone might get lucky.

Or unlucky. A  _Wasp_ , its light weapons of no value at this long range, disintegrated as a swooping aerospace fighter managed to rip into the ammunition for the light 'Mech's SRM launcher. A  _Javelin_ from the same lance turned and fired its own SRMs fruitlessly after the departing fighter only to be caught in the rear by the fighter's wingman. The ammo bins were not destroyed, but the scout 'Mech fell anyway, its reactor reduced to wreckage. The trailing fighter was not as fortunate as the leader however: a volley of long range missiles from inside the Academy rose up in front of it and blew the nose off, sending it into a terminal dive towards the far side of the campus.

Victoria saw one of her particle beams intersect with one of the falling suits – one of the armoured infantry. The armoured infantryman continued to control its descent, much to her disgust. It was hard to believe that anything so small could survive a hit by an anti-Mech weapon, but she'd just confirmed reports that the damn things could survive even the reliable punch of a PPC that would have reduced the arm or leg of a 'Mech twenty times as heavy to twisted wreckage. "Damn monsters," she muttered to herself. "But we'll learn your secrets and then there'll be a reckoning."

The air outside Victoria's cockpit rattled as shells began to arch over her position towards the dropzone. The RCT's artillery group wasn't holding anything back… unfortunately, they only had twenty artillery pieces to work with, three batteries of lightweight Thumpers and two of the larger Snipers. The first enemy 'Mechs reached the ground bracketed by three explosions but it walked out of them, barely marked at all.

_We need heavier guns. I hope things are going better up there._

* * *

There had been eighty-one fighters in the first wave: one wing of twenty from all four of the regiments on the ground, and Katiara Kylie's  _Shilone_.

Perhaps half that many were still fighting, depleted by those damnable heavy missiles (one  _Sparrowhawk_  had been eviscerated by a missile that looked larger than the fighter itself), the sheer damn luck of having that many capital lasers blazing away and – of course – the defending fighters. The fighters that still twisted and turned through the age old deadly dance of the dogfight.

Metal disintegrated as a split second's inattention on the part of Kylie let an aerospace fighter in jade green livery unload a burst from its autocannon into one of the stablisers. It wouldn't manage – much – out here, but steering back in the atmosphere would be interesting, she thought, committing an optimism, as she twisted away, one of her loyal guardians from the 607th dropping in on the tail of the enemy fighter and opening up four large lasers. Not enough to stop it, but enough to distract the clanner pilot from his prey.

 _Closer, closer_ , she chanted in the far corner of her eyes as the mass of the battleship swept closer. No one had used a nuclear weapon against a warship in living memory – hells, no one had  _seen_  a warship in near enough two hundred years, but the tactics had not entirely been forgotten, passed down in the myths, legends and collective memory of the Inner Sphere's fighter pilot community. And they all said to take the shot close, minimising the time for point defense to damage the missile before it could hit. And to aim forward or aft, for the command decks or for the engines.

She was going for aft. Harder to repair in the long run. Scheisse, if the ship had the wrong trajectory, it might kill the whole thing in the long run: send it into a terminally decaying orbit before anyone could salvage it.

Crosshairs inside her helmet flared golden and Kylie felt her breathing quicken. In range now. She'd press home further before firing if she could… but she was close enough now for even the ancient guidance circuits of the missile to take it to its destination.

Needless to say, that was when the pair of T-shaped fighters somewhat like  _Lucifers_  slashed down upon her and the one  _Stuka_  still on her wing. Lasers, cannon and missiles sprayed across their dorsal surfaces as the two enemy fighters cut down behind them and yellow marked Kylie's status boards, with a couple of red spots appearing. One – a fuel pump – went back to amber as the alternate took up the slack and reduced the pressure upon it. The other, representing one of her wing mounted lasers, didn't spring back.

The  _Stuka_  was even more seriously hurt, one wing all but severed and fire visible  _inside_  the cockpit. "Good luck, Striker," called the pilot and the burning heavy fighter jinked slightly and then fired all retrothrusters. One hundred tons of Davion aerospace fighter came abruptly to a dead halt… right in the path of one of the deadly duo. The explosion of two fusion thrusters sent fragments rattling off the armour of Kylie's  _Shilone_  and presumably if the destroyed Clan fighter's partner.

 _And then there was one_. "All fighters, red. I repeat: red." With a moment's regret at not getting any closer, Kylie took the moment's freedom while the last Clan fighter was still disorientated, flipping the arming switch for the nuke and bringing her thumb onto the suddenly live trigger button for her ordnance.

There was a complete lack of result.

The moment of disbelief almost killed her as the remaining fighter managed to close in again. A PPC shot hammered into the  _Shilone_ 's spine and every screen in Kylie's cockpit fuzzed for a moment before the computers managed to compensate for the ionisation effects of the heat. Fortunately, the controls didn't cease to respond and she broke into a barrel roll to break the lock, laser beam missing the wide wings of the fighter by inches.

"Aren't you aggressive?" Kylie muttered as the fighter chased after her, trying to reacquire her. "Chasing my ass like that, must be a guy." She deliberately delayed her next zig-zag until the fighter was immediately behind her and then triggered the aft missile launcher, firing four SRMs into the face of of the Clan pilot, who clearly wasn't used to fighting  _Shilone_ s judging by the sharpness of his break off to evade them.

Two  _Corsair_ s, one reduced to little more than a metal dart by the damage to its wing surfaces, pinned the fighter between them, keeping it from chasing Kylie as she lined up again, one hand dancing over the controls as she tried to establish why the missile hadn't launched. It took three separate diagnostics to trace the problem: one of the laser shots had hit the external bracket, severing some of the control runs and fusing others. The warhead itself tested fine… but the missile was a complete loss.

Kylie grit her teeth.  _Everyone's depending on me_ , she thought, faces flashing through her mind and she started flipping switches on the ordnance control system, eliminating safety lockouts. Usually several mission-specific criteria needed to be met before the nuclear warhead initiated fission. In this case, several of those restrictions were intended to prevent the weapon from detonating while attached to the parent  _Shilone_.

Without that restriction, and with the warhead already armed, the only remaining criteria was for the targeting computer to confirm that the missile was within a few milliseconds of contact from a target. The battered fighter creaked as it pulled a painfully slow turn, all that the tortured structure could manage and then Kylie opened up the throttle, sending it roaring down towards the massive thrusters that dominated the rear of the Texas.

The  _Shilone_  creaked around her, warning lights flickering from amber to red as the stressed air frame began to fail. It didn't matter, she wouldn't need it for more than a few more seconds…

The range towards the  _Texas_  shrank, the huge ship visible even to the naked eye and Kylie watched the numbers shrink towards the threshold distance. "All fighters!" she shrieked, broadcasting without regard to who would hear her. "Red! Red! Red!" And she grabbed the eject lever with both hands and yanked it towards her.

Even before Katiara Kylie's cockpit was hurled clear of the  _Shilone_ , the warhead had already come to it's conclusion and began the final count down. The cockpit and the pilot were barely a dozen yards away when explosive charges rammed the subcritical plutonium masses together and rendered them critical. Were it not for one freak chance of battle, she would still have been well within the lethal range of the weapon when it went off: the barest instant before the five kiloton nuke detonated the  _Shilone_ , given a slight downward impetus by the ejection, entered the massively armoured thruster itself, the nose crumpling against the inside of a fuel feed as the nuke went off.

A flash of light tore through the thruster and deep into the systems behind it. Hundreds of failsafes cut in aboard the  _Texas_ , generations of faithful service by Jade Falcon technicians repaid as they prevented a fatal chain reaction from reaching the main fuel tanks and tearing the ship apart but nothing could save that engine block and it disintegrated, millions of fragments scattered like shrapnel into space around the rear quarter of the warship. Almost forty aerospace fighters were reduced to metal splinters, two thirds of them from the  _Texas_ ' own onboard complement, the others every surviving pilot of the 607th Avalon Wing.

Kylie herself was protected by the warship's bulk as her cockpit, retaining the velocity of the destroyed fighter, hurtled down the length of the ship and off past its bow.


	5. Chapter 5

**Somerset Military Academy, Somerset**

**Tamar March, Lyran Commonwealth**

**25 September 3050**

The rest of the Tenth Lyran Guards were about four minutes from hitting the rear of the Falcons' Claws, as the enemy unit were named if their somewhat grandiose challenges were any indication. Victoria hunched her  _Marauder_  over behind the hulk of a burned out  _Schrek_  to catch her breath and assess the situation. At a rough guess, her battalion would have trouble holding out another two minutes: they'd pushed back the last thrust on the gate at the cost of another two 'Mechs down and seven of those remaining had been pounded on until she really doubted that they could survive another thrust.

Fortunately, some of the enemy were showing damage but there were still at least twenty of them covering the main entrance, with perhaps that many of their armoured infantry. Her command lance – down to herself, Galen and Dave Jewell with Adam Steiner, the last standing member of the Somerset Strikers, folded in – and the nine operable Mechs of First Company were outnumbered almost two to one and only the support of a mixed company of surviving  _Schrek_ s and  _Rommel_  tanks evened the odds a little.

Kai and Third Company were holding the left flank steady by all accounts, but the right and Second Company had taken even heavier losses. And of course, Mara Foreman and half her regiment had been killed contesting the dropzone. It was only the damage taken by the Falcons' Claws there that made the situation tenable. "Blizzard Six to all Blizzard units. Situation reports."

"Blizzard Three is holding," Rachel Meisler reported. "They're down to eight Mechs to our nine."

"Good work, Three." Victoria paused, waiting for the other report. "Blizzard Two, respond," she called after a moment's pause. A chill went down her spine despite the heat of the cockpit.  _If they've turned our flank_ …

"Blizzard Six, this is Blizzard Twenty-three," reported a worried voice. "Hauptmann Reilly is down, five of them broke past us into the Academy grounds."

Blood drained from Victoria's face. "What is your position, Twenty-Three?"

"We've retaken the gates," the young Mechwarrior – although Ben Richardson was older than she was, Victoria thought – told her. "Five Mechs and seven tanks left. Most of us are heavily damaged and there are still some of them out there."

"I understand," Victoria confirmed, keeping her voice steady. Panic could spread far too fast. "I'm sending reinforcements. Just hold the gate until they get there, leftenant."

"I'm a sergeant, Blizzard Six," the young man said in surprise, the fear knocked out of him for a moment.

"Consider yourself breveted," she retorted. "Keep it together, Ben. The rest of the regiment is almost here." She switched channel to the private command lance frequency. "Galen, take Hauptmann Giordano and his company and root out those 'Mechs. Once you're done have the tanks reinforce Second Company."

There was a moment's pause and then Galen's  _Crusader_  started moving. "Dave," the blond Hauptmann's voice crackled over the frequency. "Keep the Kommandant alive until I get back or you'll answer to Leftenant Allard."

Victoria muttered something uncomplimentary under her breath as she heard Mechwarrior David Jewell chuckle at the remark. Of such things is morale made. Then she turned her attention towards the green-painted war machines outside that seemed to be rallying for another rush upon the gates.

A laser beam sliced through the air above her  _Marauder_ , carving a trail in the thick wall not far from where the  _Crusader_  had vanished from view into the academy. Okay, if the magnetic anomaly detector was right then there was a lot of metal moving fast: the invaders were coming in full bore. "I guess they figured out we have them trapped," Victoria noted. "Hold cover until they're in range and then concentrate on the infantry – if they get inside they'll be the  _diable_  to root out."

As the range dropped to five hundred metres, she straightened the legs of her  _Marauder_ , now able to bring her full weapon suit to bear. Other 'Mechs with long range weapons followed suit and a single massive volley ripped into the onrushing Clan 'Mechs. Victoria aimed for the four infantry riding upon a red  _Thor_  in the front rank. One shot missed, another blasted the soldier to ashes and the last shot missed the target, but hit the 'Mech, carving a furrow in its right arm. Beside her, Dave Jewell and Adam Steiner also fired into the squad, the  _Wolverine_ 's autocannon and the  _Axman_ 's LRMs knocking the three survivors clear of the Mech but not dropping any of them. Smoothly the remaining infantry leapt free of their mounts and began to bound forwards on their jump-packs, under covering fire from the 'Mechs. The red  _Thor_  and a  _Freya_  picked Victoria's lance as their targets.

Dave Jewell's  _Wolverine_  took the brunt of the  _Freya_ 's volley, the smaller Mech staggering under impacts that peeled away tons of armour, the Mech's profile sharpening as if under some violent weight-loss programme. The autocannon clutched in the right fist dropped away along with the fist as the aluminium-titanium forearm was severed just above the wrist. Fortunate, since the ammunition started to gangfire a moment later, tearing the weapon's magazine apart and scattering shrapnel against the 'Mech's leg. Had it been a few metres higher, the damage would have been to the already weakened right chest.

The  _Thor_  picked Adam as his target and its PPC flayed the last armour from the heavy 'Mech's right arm. Missiles and high explosive shells tracked damage across the  _Axman_ , one of them severing the shaft of the powerful Mech's hatchet. "Malthus!" Adam shouted, using his loudspeakers. "I should have known you'd come here!"

"Do you socialize with all the Jade Falcon officers in this part of the universe?" Victoria asked, ignoring the 'Mechs to fire into the Elementals that were now falling behind their larger compatriots. Another was smashed down by her PPCs and sweat ran down her face as heat rushed through the cockpit.

"No, but this one's proved himself to be rather persistent," Adamn growled, firing more missiles into the oncoming  _Thor_.

The Mechwarrior – Nicolai Malthus, if Victoria recalled the data from the Strikers correctly – laughed. "I have said the same of you, Adam Steiner. One way or another, our rivalry ends today. But perhaps I will not be the one to kill you."

"What?" asked Adam in surprise and then the  _Freya_  fired its own missiles in an arching path through the sky towards Adam's 'Mech. Armour broke and fell away under the barrage, leaving a clear holes in the right side of the  _Axman_ 's barrel chest.

"I thought I could show you the way of the Clans, Adam Steiner!" Ciro Ramirez shouted, his voice booming around the  _Freya_ , projected by the external speakers. "But now I am just going to kill you!"

Victoria cut into the conversation with her PPCs. Focusing upon Adam's  _Axman_ , Ciro had halted for a second, giving her the chance to draw a perfect bead upon the OmniMech and all three shots struck, two savaging the armour to the left and rear of the  _Freya_ 's cockpit, the third blasting through the side of the 'Mech's leftside missile pod and wrecking it thoroughly. "I didn't think it was possible, given how slimy you were at the Nagelring, Ramirez, but you've actually become less charming," she told him, using her own external speakers to reply.

The heavy 'Mech jerked around and she could almost see the shocked expression on her classmate's face as he identified the voice coming from the advancing  _Marauder_. "Duchess Victoria Steiner-Davion… I would have thought you had at least enough brains to keep running until you reached on Tharkad after the thrashing you took on Trell One." The  _Freya_  turned sharply – Ciro's skills had certainly sharpened under the Jade Falcons' tuition, Victoria admitted privately – and returned fire with its large lasers, slashing a long groove through the armour on the  _Marauder_ 's right arm.

"Go play with Malthus," Victoria ordered Adam privately. "I think I can spank this spoiled brat without your help." She fired again, trying to hit the  _Freya_ 's damaged side, but Ciro twisted quickly and one shot missed cleanly, the others ripping into the right arm and central chest without obvious effect.

"This isn't the Nagelring, little Duchess," Ciro bragged. "And you don't have your parents to hide behind." Missiles from his remaining rack arched across the battlefield and battered at Victoria's Mech, nibbling away at the armour.

Closing in at a deliberate pace, Victoria felt sweat running down her face as waves of heat swept through her cockpit, but the heat never reached the unbearable levels that would have resulted from maintaining this barrage in a 'Mech with ordinary heatsinks. She fired again, this time ripping into Ciro's 'Mech's right leg, chest and arm. The two Mechs were of a similar weight but even with the improvements they weren't equals. That was alright with Victoria: neither were the Mechwarriors inside them.

Ciro fired everything into the  _Marauder_  as the distance between them dropped below two hundred metres and Victoria had to fight to keep her 'Mech from falling while the gyro adjusted from the ton and a half of armour that had been battered from its frame. However, her infrared detectors betrayed that the savage barrage had strained the heatsinks of the  _Freya_  past their limits and the internal temperature must be rising… and to bring all weapons to bear, Ciro had had to risk exposing his damaged left flank and Victoria fired everything in both arm pods.

Both of the PPCs hissed past the side of the  _Freya_  not quite on target, as did one of the lasers, but the last struck perfectly into the gaping hole carved by her initial attack. For an instant she thought that her gamble had failed, and then she saw the diagram of the Clan Mech shift from yellows and oranges up into reds signalling unmistakeably that the reactor's shielding had been breached. Ciro's OmniMech froze up as safeties cut in… an instant too late as a panel on the back of the 'Mech tore away, channelling the detonation of one of the onboard ammunition stores away from the internals of the  _Freya_.

"Integral cellular ammunition storage. Cute," noted Victoria. The left arm of the  _Freya_  now hung loose, clearly no longer under the pilot's control, even if he could spare the attention from trying to prevent the sudden gutting of the left torso from bringing the 'Mech to its knees… or haunches, given the birdlike arrangements of its legs.

Only a few hundred metres away, Adam's  _Axman_  was trading shots with the  _Thor_  piloted by the enemy commander. The Clansman was probably close enough to give supporting fire to Victoria's turncoat classmate, but everything she'd heard about their honour code suggested that it was unlikely. Her PPCs cycled and she took advantage of Ciro's momentary failure to move, pinpointing the right knee, just above where she had hit it before. The beams flensed through armour and myomers, hindering the other Mechwarrior's ability to upright. Nonetheless, Ciro managed to twist the torso of the heavy 'Mech and fired his lasers into Victoria's  _Marauder_ , carving furrows through the armour around her reactor – he was getting entirely too close to penetrating it, she realised. Worse, the move seemed to have helped stabilise the  _Freya_.

A moment later however, a volley of missiles arched down upon the damaged Clan Mech, blasting craters into intact armour and carving into the internals where the armour had breached. Victoria checked her rear arc and saw Galen's  _Crusader_  moving to back her up. "Everything under control?" she asked.

"All five of them charged right into the urban combat course," Galen said with a feigned quaver in his voice. "The tankers sounded downright hungry when they saw them. Giordano said he was going to cut straight through the course to get to the gates – he lost a few tanks getting there, but he made it through and has control of the situation."

Victoria winced. The centuries-long dominance of the BattleMech over the battlefield had led to a degree of ill-feeling between Mechwarriors and Armored Vehicle crewman. The enthusiasm of a company of  _Demolisher_ tanks at being able to engage enemy Mechs at point blank range with their 185mm cannon would be a fearsome thing, even if they hadn't just watched their regiment's _Schrek_ s getting cut to pieces on the open ground.

"What was it you said about not taking these guys on solo?" Galen added, salvoing another flight of long range missiles into Ciro's Omnimech. Victoria added her PPCs to the fire, two bolts searing harmlessly past the  _Freya_ 's side and the third lashing through the armour of the right arm.

"Only if you absolutely have to," she confirmed drily.

Ciro reared his OmniMech up and the infrared display was almost as blinding as the barrage he hurled at Victoria. Startled by the sudden change of tactics and off-balance from the sudden obliteration of two tons of armour, she failed to adjust fast enough and the blue-white Marauder crashed backwards, smacking her helmeted head painfully back against the command couch.

The roar of an explosion echoed outside her cockpit as her vision cleared. The holographic display was still functional and looking 'down' she could see Ciro's  _Freya_ , now with both sides of the torso gutted, fallen forward with silvery fire rushing out of the engine as air was sucked into the fusion reactor and converted to plasma. In the air, the traitor's parachute showed that he had punched out at the last minute.

Further away, Malthus's  _Thor_  stood – missing its right arm – over the fallen shape of Adam's  _Axman_. Then the view was blocked by the back of Galen's  _Crusade_ r as he stepped forwards to defend his fallen commander.

There was flash in the sky and an air defense officer cut across the command channel. "We have confirmed nuclear detonation at the location of the enemy warship."

* * *

"Blake's Blood it's still there!" one pilot gasped.

"Cut that out," Kirk growled. "The damned thing was built to survive hits like that – but we've rocked it on its heels so let's get in there and finish it off before it recovers."

Sure enough, the massive warship was only manoeuvring sluggishly as the first fighter groups of the second wave converged through the scattering debris blasted free by Kylie's attack. Titanic flashes of light lit space as turrets turned and terrifying firepower was turned upon the impudent attackers, but Kirk only saw two fireballs inside his formations – clearly the more optimistic view of the warbook's scanty information on the battleship anti-fighter capabilities had been correct: the vessel didn't have much. Most probably the primary defense had been the aerospace complement – most of which were no longer in evidence.

Even so, the fighters were barely chipping at the paintwork. "Get in closer," Kirk ordered and led his squadrons forward at a hard 3-G burn, heading for the rear and the – hopefully vulnerable – damaged engines. Another, larger group was boring in towards the nose and what looked like the command section of the hull, but the Lyran Guard fighters were still shaking themselves into formation for the run. Meanwhile, a wing from the Ninth Fed-Com's aerospace brigade were taking losses as they closed in on the broadside arc, exposing themselves recklessly to close in to their weapons' most effective ranges.

The crosshairs on Kirk's HUD went gold and he triggered the lasers and PPC of his  _Stingray_ , salvaged from a long ago campaign along the Marik border. Tons of armour shattered under dozens of weapon impacts as every fighter in Kirk's wing unleashed every weapon they could bring to bear and he could see the Fed-Com wing doing the same along the big ship's right flank. But still, the behemoth simply refused to show any sign of damage and more fighters died under brutal fire from weapons intended to break armour belts heavier than entire dropships.

Miraculously, one  _Vulcan_  sailed out of a fireball after taking a capital missile hit to the nose and despite the loss of a wing, a Kell Hounds  _Stingray_  continued to fire doggedly, but not everyone was so lucky. A  _Corsair_  on his wing left formation, verniers firing erratically as the control computer failed, overheated by the sustained weapons fire. And of course, some fighters simply disappeared in the fiery deaths that had marked the end of a pilot's life for a thousand years or more.

Within moments the leading fighter squadrons converged upon the Jade Falcon battleship and added the danger of collision to the risks as dozens of fusion thrusters roared in close proximity, fighters 'skidding' and side-slipping as they tried to keep the ship in their fire arcs without killing their fellow pilots. Kirk skimmed his own fighter along the very spine of the enemy vessel, the airframe creaking as he spun it through one hundred eighty degrees, his own spine complaining almost as audibly, and opened up on the ship's bow, fire from the Lyran Guards aerospace fighters - only now entering weapons range - slashing past him and into the ship.

Kirk growled as he saw that the Texas seemed to be still fighting. In fact, the ship looked no more damaged than the Major's pocket telephone had the time that a young Caitlin Kell had decided to 'polish' all the pocket electronics in a tray outside the Kell Hounds' secure briefing room with sandpaper. At least from the rear he had been able to see the damage caused by the nuke. Sliding the _Stingray_  into an S-turn away from the lethal mix of fighters around the ship, he spared a finger to switch channel from aerospace command to the operational command net.

"Colonel Allard," he reported. "The warship appears to be immobilised, but it's shrugging off everything else that we throw at it. Respectfully, we need some more options."

* * *

Nicolai Mathus'  _Thor_  was on the ground and Galen brought the right foot of his Crusader back before swinging it forward in a savage arc that terminated just below the ribs (no metaphor, since there were analogous structural members supporting the torso). Seventy tons (well, probably below sixty-five given ammunition expenditure and general damage) of war machine rolled under the impact. Metal folded with a protesting scream and Victoria could see that the associated arm flopped in the familiar manner that indicated loss of control over the myomers.

She fired her PPCs into a cluster of Elementals that were trying to interfere. One shot missed – at a hundred metres, the focusing of the beam from the left hand model wasn't quite right. Something to look into later. A second hit a suit that must have already been damaged because it literally exploded, spreading metal and burned flesh out around a small crater. The last shot struck cleanly but the blasted infantryman was still moving despite being smacked around the chest with what amounted to a bolt of lightning.  _Cheating batard_. Victoria would love to know how the Clans built armour that could take a clean hit from a Donal PPC and keep moving.

Victoria planted her  _Marauder_ 's hoofed foot on top of the infantryman and he squelched satisfactorily. Across the drill grounds, the remaining Clan Mechs were being cut down by overwhelming numbers as the other two thirds of the Tenth Lyran Guards arrived.

"We hit it with a nuke and two hundred fighters and it's still alive?" she asked in genuine surprise. "Blake's  _Blood_  that thing is built well."

Dan Allard's voice crackled across the radio. "Aside from admiring the achievements of the Star League's engineers, we need to do something about that ship. It's still blocking our launch trajectory."

"Is it in position for orbital bombardment?" asked Akira Brahe, the commander of the Kell Hounds' Second Regiment.

"Not according to Janos' calculations," Dan assured them.

"This is Storm Five," General Milstein cut in. "We've defeated their ground forces. Is there any possibility of negotiation?"

Victoria chuckled. "Galen, be sure not to kill your football over there. I think I need to talk to the man."

* * *

Star Colonel Malthus was not, unfortunately, in a position to talk to anyone. At some point during the kicking that Galen had delivered, the Clan mechwarrior's straps had parted and when infantrymen broke the cockpit open the man was comatose, sprawled in a bloody heap across his command console. There was reasonable hope that he would awaken... eventually.

Instead, Victoria had to make do with Adam Steiner's other  _bete noir_  among the ranks of Clan Jade Falcon. The princess amused herself as she waited for the Star Colonel to arrive by guessing at names for other such Clans. She already know of Wolf. Perhaps there was a Clan Black Cat out there. And if so, would it be unlucky to have them cross her path? For someone, no doubt.

Kristen Redmond's face was trying to display defiance as soldiers hustled her out of the personnel carrier that had rushed her to the improvised rendezvous – an open-sided tent just inside the campus gates. It was easy to make out the shock however. Around them were the signs left by the battle... and it would be plainly evident to the woman which side had emerged triumphant. After all, she was still a prisoner.

"Good evening," Victoria said, disturbed despite herself at the first sight of one of the redoubtable Clan warriors in the flesh. It was doubtful if Redmond had ever been pretty, but the scar across her face and the distinctly different colour of the eye within the socket bisected by the injury made it clear that the original optic organ had been destroyed somehow. Adding the metallic pseudo-tattoos and Redmond resembled little more than one of the reckless bands of reavers that boiled in out of the Periphery from time to time. She would have fit in perfectly alongside a mugshot of Paula 'Lady Death' Trevaline.

But then, for all their advanced science, in some ways the Clans didn't seem so very different from an ambitious band of pirates.

Redmond glanced around, feigning anger. "Who is in charge here?" she demanded.

Victoria's own eyes narrowed. " _I_  am in charge. Sit your ass down." She pointed imperiously at the seat that had been prepared for the captive.

"You?" The mechwarrior's lips curved in derision. "Impossible. You are tiny."

It was always useful to have skills applicable outside of the cockpit, Victoria noted. The Mauser and Gray was pointed at Redmond's nose in the wink of an eye, a well-practised quickdraw that she had practised for hours as a child under the tuition of her bodyguards. "God made man and woman, Colonel. But it was Samuel Colt who made us all  _equal_." She spun the weapon in her hand, rather flamboyantly and then replaced it in her holster. "More simply: I won, you lost."

The two women matched glares for a moment and Redmond conceded the point, sinking into the chair, leaning slightly forwards. "Very well. What do you want of me?"

"Information of course. One of my cousins tells me that it counts as ammunition and I find it almost as valuable." Victoria leant against the field table and eyed her prisoner. "I'm sure that you've grasped that Nicolai Malthus' force has been defeated, just as you were. The garrison forces that were placed at Old Exeter have also been defeated. We now control the surface of Somerset. In orbit however, we are stalemated."

Redmond nodded. "We wondered how long it would take for your warfleet to arrive," she said. "The  _Falcon's Nest_  will not be defeated easily."

"I noticed that. Impressive that they're still fighting after my pilots nuked it."

The scar-faced woman's face went an unfetching shade of grey. "You used a  _nuclear weapon_?"

Victoria shrugged. "Yeah. Well I couldn't exactly smuggle a battleship around in my field kit so a nuke was the next best option…"

"You savage…" the former Star Colonel murmured, her eyes focused on something other than Victoria. "We were right to come here, to protect the Inner Sphere from you."

"Now you're just overreacting," replied Victoria casually, her mind ticking over options as she took the measure of the older woman's disgust at the tactic. "Come on, it's a  _warship_. The Ares Conventions are pretty clear that I'm allowed to use nukes against one of those. It's not like I'm flattening cities with orbital strikes. Now that would be pretty barbaric, wouldn't it?"

Redmond lowered her face. "Those actions have caused much recrimination among my people. They will not be repeated."

"You're right. They  _won't_  be," Victoria told her flatly. She took a deep breath. "However, that's not my immediate concern. Your friends up there have been crippled, but they are still in position to threaten my dropships if we take off. And I'll give them credit, destroying a ship that size with only aerospace fighters will take time I don't feel like wasting. In a situation like this, where both sides lose by continuing the fight, what is the position of your people on negotiation?"

"We do not approve of waste," Redmond told her, speaking slowly and cautiously. "If neither side will accept hegira, then -"

Victoria held a hand up to pause the explanation. "'Hegira'?"

"The right to leave a battlefield unharmed. Bondsmen are released by both sides, but the victor retains all other spoils."

It took only an instant for Victoria to weigh that option and find it wanting. "As if. Continue."

"'As if'?" Redmond asked instead, apparently confused by the slang.

"A derisive way of saying no," the young Kommandant explained. "An abbreviation, if you will, of 'as if I would do such a thing'. So, failing Hegira...?"

"Ah. Then it is usual to bargain forces to minimise losses. It is, obviously, a mark of disgrace to have to do so after combat has already been joined, but preferable to the waste of both sides being destroyed."

Victoria nodded. "Some sort of proxy battle then? And who would make such a bargain with me? The senior officers on this planet are all... what is your word? Bondsmen, isn't it? And it does not seem that that whoever commands your proud  _Nest_  wishes to speak to us." She smiled somewhat ruefully. "We have tried, you see. But it seems likely that their radio antennae have been damaged by the battle as there has not been the least response."

Redmond frowned and then shrugged. "Have you tried contacting them via this planet's hyperpulse generator? I recall the unit aboard the  _Falcon_ 's _Nest_  is buried deep within the hull and would probably remain operational."

"There you go. I knew that you would be helpful," said Victoria, somewhat patronizingly. "I'll have a word with ComStar about that. One useful thing about those double-dealing  _batards_  is that they double-deal with everyone. I'm sure that they have crawled their way into regular contact with your superiors."

"What will you do to me now?" Redmond asked her somewhat bitterly. "I know that you barbarians have no equivalence to being bondsman but you have made it clear that you will not release your prisoners."

Victoria gave her an amused look and picked a radio handset from the table. "Galen, this is Victoria. Over."

A moment later Galen's voice crackled over the radio speaker, only slightly distorted by static. "This is Galen, over."

"Apparently the illustrious Clan Jade Falcon fitted a hyperpulse generator to their ship and Redmond reckons there's a good chance that it'll be operable. Have someone go twist ComStar's arm into setting up a communications channel, would you?"

"I live to serve," the Hauptmann replied sardonically. "Galen out."

With that matter dealt with, Victoria picked up a field stool and sat down upon it. "Now, Kristen Redmond, we talk. I'm a little vague on this bondsman business of yours, so maybe we do have some equivalent way that you can make yourself useful. That would be pleasant, since the alternative is wasteful." She used the last word deliberately and saw a subtle tension fade from the clan warrior's posture. So avoiding waste was a fetish to these people, just as she'd guessed from Redmond's earlier words. "Perhaps the most immediate question is the one you just touched upon."

There was a pause, Redmond's brow furrowing as she realised that she was clearly expected to respond but was unsure how. "I do not understand."

"Precisely." The princess smiled slightly. "We clearly have significantly different cultures and we do not understand each other. You are going to help me to understand your people."

"I see. What do you want to know?"

Hmm. Probably too early to press for military information. "Well, let's start at the beginning. Your origins. You're obviously human, but no civilisation I've ever heard of within the Inner Sphere. So where did you and yours branch off from the Tree of Man?"

Redmond frowned as she worked through the question in her mind. Clearly, Victoria noted, florid oratory was not something that Clan Jade Falcon considered a common practise. The mechwarrior's final response however, astonished her.

"We are the weapon of the resurrected Star League," Redmond recited, clearly from memory. "Honed to a razor's edge by the Trials, by the Remembrance, and by the Words of the Great Kerenskys, our sires, our saviours."

* * *

**Somerset Military Academy, Somerset**

**Tamar March, Lyran Commonwealth**

**26 September 3050**

Clan Jade Falcon hadn't paid for an expensive verigraphed message, so what the ComStar acolyte provided was perfectly ordinary paper. The contents were a little unexpected though.

"I was just expecting a reply from the commander of the  _Falcon's Nest_ ," Victoria observed. "Instead, I've got what looks like an offer of parley from Khan..." She squinted. "Timur Malthus. Whoever that is. Khan sounds important though."

"Khan Malthus is the leader of the Jade Falcon touman," volunteered Redmond without prompting. "He is second only to Khan Crichell within the ranks of Jade Falcon."

Victoria nodded slowly. "And he's taking a personal interest. How flattering."

"Are you going to talk to him?" Galen shook his head. "What am I saying – of course you are."

"I don't see anyone else we can negotiate with presenting themselves." The princess nodded. "Tell them we agree to talk. And when you're done, see what the technical crews can do with our salvage. If this comes to some kind of honour duel I want to make sure we have a couple of aces – and both jokers – tucked up our sleeves."

"That doesn't sound very honourable."

Victoria smirked. "My cousin Phelan was very proud about learning to play poker from the Kell Hounds jump infantry. And he's generally not too bad… except I learned how to play from my my grandmother. Alas, diplomacy required I return his month's allowance."

"Archon Katrina taught you to play poker?"

"Among other games. More importantly, she taught me that when it isn't a game any more if you're not cheating then you're not trying hard enough."

* * *

"I'm curious. Why invade now? We're finally recovering from the damage done by the Succession Wars – surely you would have found this invasion far easier during the Third Succession War?"

Victoria had called Redmond out of confinement again to pick her brain again over dinner. The picture she was getting of the Clans was probably horribly lop-sided – interviewing a member of only one Clan and one caste at that, but it wasn't her job to put the whole picture together. That was being handled by some of Uncle Justin's experts. What Victoria needed was to get inside the heads of the Clan's leaders.

Redmond looked disgusted. "We fully intended to, but Kerlin Ward insisted on a thorough reconnaissance. We spent decades hanging on for a few paltry reports from the force sent here to take your measure and twenty years ago they simply ceased communications entirely. It wasn't until an Inner Sphere ship stumbled across us that we were able to prove that you Spheroids posed a threat to us."

Victoria's eyebrows rose, but on consideration the point had merit. The Inner Sphere was probably a vastly larger area than whatever state lay behind the Clans. Even if each Clan was around the size of... well, say the Outworlds Alliance. That would make all four or five Clans at best equivalent to the Free Worlds League. Faced with the possibility of an Inner Sphere united under the banner of the Federated Commonwealth – with attendant waves of emigration into the Periphery as resulted from almost every round of fighting in the Inner Sphere – and with the technological gap closing, she could see that the Clans' leaders would be concerned.

Although, numbers like that… "You're all descended from Kerensky's Exodus Fleet, right. But there were only so many people aboard the fleet. I don't recall how many offhand but low millions. Unless you've hit some ridiculously steep birth-rate…" She typed into her note-puter for a second. "What  _is_  your total population?"

The bondswoman gave her a blank look. "I have no idea. Why would I care?"

"It's one of those little things that affect logistics," Victoria told her with forced patience. "Do you at least know the population of your own clan? Former clan, I should say."

"I do not. We had enclaves on eight worlds, two of which we completely controlled. Many more worlds than this have been conquered in the Inner Sphere."

Victoria frowned. "That's a start. And how does that compare to the other Clans?"

"Clan Jade Falcon is amongst the largest of the Clans. Also the wealthiest," Redmond added casually. "Only three or perhaps four other Clans come close."

Three or four? Out of how many? Victoria considered this and decided there wasn't any reason not to ask. "So tell me about the other Clans. How many of them are there?"

* * *

**Somerset Military Academy, Somerset**

**Tamar March, Lyran Commonwealth**

**27 September 3050**

A face appeared in the screen and Victoria took the measure of the man, knowing that he was doing likewise. Proud, confident, she judged. He had the look of a warrior, but also of a politician by whatever standard such existed amongst the Clans.

Victoria did not nod or lower her eyes in respect. Such would be a sign of weakness here. Instead she met Malthus' stare head on. "Khan Malthus. I am Kommandant Steiner-Davion."

The man's eyes widened slightly. "Ah, the Princess of this Federated Commonwealth. I regret that we failed to capture you on Trellwan."

"Oddly, I don't regret that at all," Victoria told him. "Shall we get down to business? Or do you think I'm a prize worth losing what looks to be a rather large and expensive military asset for a fleeting chance at capturing?"

"Do not flatter yourself," the Khan sneered. "What do you bid, Princess?"

Based on Redmond's advice, Victoria had decided to be blunt. "We will take our bondsmen and our salvage, along with anyone on Somerset who wishes to accompany us and we have space for and we'll leave Somerset to you, for now. If the  _Falcon's Nest_  doesn't try to hinder us, then we will leave it alone here for you to salvage. My advisors tell me that while it isn't in an entirely stable orbit, you will have plenty of time to correct that."

"And how can I trust that you will not make more use of nuclear weapons?"

"Khan Malthus, if you and yours continue to make such reckless use of your warships then you may trust that I  _will_."

Timur's face darkened. "You are so bold as to threaten me with weapons of mass destruction?"

Victoria fought to remain outwardly calm. "Such weapons are a natural counterbalance to your warships. And given the uses to which the ships have been put, be glad that we are being moderate in their employment. Can you promise me that no more cities will be reduced to glass by the petulance of your commanders?"

"I can," Malthus assured her, unexpectedly. "If and only if you will likewise guarantee that no more nuclear weapons will be used against my warriors."

"So you can confidently use them to interdict our shipping?" Victoria asked incredulously. "Keep your ships out of the Inner Sphere entirely and then we'll have something to talk about."

"That I cannot promise. So it seems we are at an impasse in this matter."

"Then let's stop wasting time on the matters we're not going to agree on and discuss something more productive. I, Kommandant Victoria Steiner-Davion challenge you to a Trial of Possession for the right of transit for my forces from Somerset to our jumpships. What do you bid against me, Khan Polly?"

She was delighted to see the Khan's redden as the insult hit home. A tidbit from Redmond had revealed the existence of a popular children's HD show among the Clans where 'Khan Polly' led a clan of anthropomorphic animals.

"I accept your challenge," the man spat. "One Mechwarrior and one 'Mech each. We'll meet in battle to decide this on the hull of the  _Falcon's Nest_  itself!"

* * *

**CJFS** _**Falcon's Nest** _ **, Somerset**

**Tamar March, Lyran Commonwealth**

**3 October 3050**

Taman Malthus watched the  _Falcon's Nest_  grow as his 'Mech coasted towards the warship from the Dropship that had carried him to Somerset from the nearby pirate point.

Off in the distance he could see an Inner Sphere dropship moving off, having launched his opponent towards the other side of the crippled battleship. As the distance dropped, the hull damage to the  _Falcon's Nest_  became more apparent. While most of it was superficial, there was a lot of it and the damage to the stern was in staggering contrast.

According to the reports from the surviving crew, it was unlikely that the battleship could be repaired without the services of a major shipyard and no such facility existed in the Inner Sphere. What a waste. It wasn't even damage caused in honourable battle against a similar vessel, just to a sneak attack.

The Khan fired a short burst from his  _Summoner_ 's jumpjets as he closed in on the hull. There was a measurable jolt despite the 'Mech's legs absorbing most of the impact as he touched down. Magnetic clamps installed specially for this battle provided attachment in lieu of gravity and suddenly up and down had meaning once again.

"Khan Malthus," reported the Star Captain who now led the command crew of the  _Falcon's Nest_. "Your opponent has arrived on our starboard hull. As arranged I will announce the beginning of the Trial. Are there any circumstances to address before I do this?"

"There are not. You may begin the Trial immediately."

After a short pause the man spoke again, this time on the open channel. "Both combatants have declared they are prepared. On my mark, the Trial will begin. Mark!"

Without hesitation, Timur started moving his 'Mech along the hull towards the rear. The heavy damage there had buckled armour plates that would act as cover. With the much shorter ranges of weapons used by spheroids, his enemy would wish to take advantage of this cover. That would make them predictable and Timur had ordered his  _Summoner_  fitted with a powerful autocannon that would give him crushing firepower at such ranges.

He'd brought the seventy-ton machine almost to the first ridge formed by the damage when thermal sensors warned of a new signature rising above the artificial horizon of the battleship's hull. Malthus' eyes flicked to the display and realised it was in his aft quarter. As he identified the source it intensified.

More than half a kilometer away from him and propelling itself well away from the hull with reckless use of jumpjets, a second Summoner – this one hastily painted in blue and white – was clearly lit by the backblast of scores of missiles.

"Stravag!" The Khan used his own jumpjets to hastily move himself back behind the cover he'd thought the spheroid was using. Explosions pockmarked the hull where he'd been standing.

A stab in the back – very cunning. And using a Clan 'Mech against him...  _I knew they'd captured some of our hardware on Somerset, but I didn't expect they would put it into service so swiftly._

The autocannon couldn't reach back but he'd not entirely relied upon close range weapons. His large laser shot back and scored a line across the chest of the enemy OmniMech.

Rather than moving down to take cover on the hull, the enemy 'Mech flared its thrusters again, moving up and away from the hull.

"Keeping the range open and taking away the benefit of my cover," Malthus concluded. "Clever, but you'll run out of reaction mass for your jumpjets. It's not like fighting in an atmosphere."

Much to his surprise he heard a reply. "Actually, I have several extra tons loaded."

"What!? Who are you? How did you find this channel!?"

Missiles rained down and this time Malthus didn't manage to avoid the barrage. His 'Mech shuddered under the impacts.

"My name is Kai Allard-Liao," the man – his opponent replied. "And this BattleMech  _was_  one of your Clan's. Is it a surprise that it has your communication channels loaded."

Malthus gritted his teeth. There was no denying that the situation was against him now.

* * *

**Triad, Tharkad City, Tharkad**

**Donegal March, Lyran Commonwealth**

**12 November 3050**

"A toast to Tyra Miraborg," Victoria said quietly, raising her glass in tribute. Around her, other officers raised their own wine and then sipped at the excellent vintage.

Around the throne room, dozens of other gatherings were likewise celebrating the victories on Somerset and the as yet ill-understood battle in the Radstadt system that had somehow given the invaders pause. Green and gold banners decorated the vast chamber, the two Griffins standing guard to either side of the throne painted in the colours of the Tenth Lyran Guards and the Ninth Federated Commonwealth Regimental Combat Teams respectively.

Galen raised his own glass. "Katiara Kylie," he offered and there was another round of drinking. It amused Victoria slightly that after all the heroics of the last few months it was the deeds of two aerospace fighter pilots that seemed to have carried most weight.  _Perhaps great-grandfather was onto something_ , she thought. Although a Mechwarrior by training, her brother's namesake Peter Davion had been a martyr to the cause of AFFS aerospace fighter pilots – literally, since Mechwarriors fearing his undercutting of their prestige had murdered him.

"Are you planning a second career as a pilot, Kai?" she asked. "Your performance over Somerset suggests you have the aptitude."

"If it's all the same to you, Victoria, I'd rather keep my feet on the ground. Khan Malthus is very skilled."

"He must be, to have survived fighting you there." Victoria raised her glass. "To the Somerset Strikers. Long may they serve the Federated Commonwealth."

Both men raised their glasses, the contents of which seemed to be almost depleted. Adam Steiner and the survivors of his force hadn't been brought back to Tharkad – they, like the bulk of the regiments that had served on Somerset, were rebuilding on Sudeten. The Strikers would take the longest to rebuild but on Victoria's urging they'd been declared a regular regiment of the AFFC.

It wasn't as if there weren't holes in the roster to replace.

The same thought had crossed Kai's mind apparently for he raised his glass. "Absent friends."

"Absent friends," the other two chorused and the three officers drained their wine.

"These seem to be empty." Galen looked around at the waiters carrying trays of replacements. "And from past experience, Kommandant, that was your one glass for the day and you'd prefer I find someone serving grape juice for the rest of the evening."

"You are a wise and astute officer, Galen. I predict that you'll go far."

"As far as the bar?"

"That's a good aide."

Victoria watched him walk off. "He's very discreet."

"Something we should probably be grateful for," Kai pointed out quietly. "You know your mother will corner me when she hears about the rumours from Sudeten – if she hasn't already."

She grinned. "I sent Morgan ahead to cushion the blow so you have some safeguards. And your father will no doubt…"

"…say it's a family matter he'd be prejudiced upon?"

"Ah, still playing that card."

"It works for him."

"Oh, do smile Kai. You're one of the heroes of the moment. If you keep sulking people will think you don't like me."

"I'm hardly a hero compared to some of the people who fought on Somerset."

"There are no shortage of heroes, and we're here to honour them. But the throne room isn't big enough for all of them." Victoria rolled the stem of her glass in her fingers. "Granted we probably wouldn't be picked as being the representatives if we weren't already prominent – but I wouldn't have picked you to duel Khan Malthus if you weren't the best man for the job. This is just the aftermath."

"I suppose so. It's just… all the kids from the Nagelring looking at me with stars in their eyes. Not knowing how many other soldiers didn't make it back."

"Those kids are only a year or two our juniors. Think of dealing with them as our training for handling Cassandra. You know she'll be pushing just as hard as Peter already is to be allowed an early graduation so she can join a frontline command."

Kai almost dropped his glass. "We're not desperate enough to send half-trained mechwarriors into battle, I hope."

"Not yet, but if an academy is over-run. Fortunately they're both well behind the lines right now."

"That's a relief." Kai's eyes widened slightly and he looked over Victoria's head before hunching his shoulders reflexively. "Incoming regality."

"You can't hide from mother behind me Kai. That hasn't worked since we were eight." Victoria turned and saw Melissa Steiner-Davion cutting through the room on the arm of Morgan Hasek-Davion. They made a striking couple and Victoria had overheard vile whispers to that effect as a child but to her it always seemed strangely out of place for the red-head of hair to tower over the blonde. Only when Hanse Davion's greying head was next to Melissa's was all in its place.

It took her a moment to spot the other thing out of place, another man behind her mother and cousin. He wore a black uniform with red-piping, the lights of the throne room casting blue highlights in his long black hair. It wasn't an AFFC uniform although the elaborate fur wolfshead design on the shoulders and the ruby eyes were certainly impressive.

"Not just regality," she said quietly. "One of Jaime Wolf's officers too."

"I've met him." Kai confirmed quietly. "Interesting."

Victoria shot him a look but it wasn't the moment for speculation. "Mother. Morgan."

"Are you done circulating?" Melissa asked, resignedly aware that her eldest daughter had probably remained firmly in the military circles of the room thus far. "Major Ngov, I'm sure you recognise my daughter and Duke Allard-Liao from recent press releases."

"Victoria Davion and Kai Allard-Liao," the man greeted them. "How convenient to find you together."

"That's Victoria  _Steiner-_ Davion," corrected Victoria reflexively. "And if our proximity surprises you then clearly Wolfnet isn't as well informed as I've been led to expect."

The Dragoon's response was a barking laugh, his head thrown back to send the sound echoing from the high-vaulted ceiling. "Spectacular," he said, looking to Melissa. "The Steiner and the Davion blood has mixed well in this one. Fire and steel. A little tempering and she'll be invincible."

Victoria shook her head. "No one's invincible."

Surprised black eyes scanned her again and seemed, if anything, more approving at her contradiction before moving on to look at Kai. "And this one needs no introduction, do you quiet one?" the man said and turned his head to wink at Morgan. "Talented Mechwarriors are a dime a dozen but an officer who constantly checks that he  _is_  right instead of just believing it, that is a valuable man."

"Thank you, Major," Kai said wryly and bowed slightly. "From you that is high praise."

"What brings you to Tharkad, Major Ngov?" asked Victoria curiously. The Wolf Dragoons had retreated to their world-hold on Outreach at first news of the Clans, cancelling a lucrative contract with the Free Worlds League to bring all their forces together. Given some of the information obtained from the prisoners captured on Somerset that suggested some unsettling possibilities. "Since you're in uniform I assume that its business, not pleasure."

"Business indeed." Although Ngov seemed to be taking considerable pleasure in it. "Colonel Jaime Wolf sent me to escort all four of you to a strategy meeting on Outreach."

Victoria pursed her lips for a moment in thought, covering the hesitation by waving over one of the waiters and his platter of untouched champagne glasses. "So the Dragoons are coming out to play? Interesting. Why Outreach though? When the Clans resume their advance I indeed to be here to stop them." A thought struck her. "Unless… tell me Major, who else is on the invitation list for this gathering?"

Morgan nodded approvingly but it was Melissa Steiner-Davion who confirmed the suspicion. "You're quite correct Victoria. Leaders from all the Inner Sphere will be gathering on Outreach to co-ordinate our efforts against the Clans. Your father and Thomas Marik. Kai's mother and his aunt Romano, Prince Magnusson and Theodore Kurita will all be meeting us there."

Victoria's gaze flicked back to Ngov. "What do you know about the Clans that we don't?" she asked suspiciously.

"That's for Colonel Wolf to tell you," the Major replied meeting her eyes evenly. "What I can tell you is that if they are allowed to retain the initiative then the odds are against there being a Lyran Commonwealth for you to inherit from your mother."


	6. Chapter 6

**Wolf's Dragoons General Headquarters, Outreach**

**Sarna March, Federated Commonwealth**

**12 January 3051**

Victoria Katrina Steiner-Davion paused in the doorway of the large hall, uncomfortably reminded of visitors to Tharkad she had sometimes seen stunned to immobility by the majesty of the Triad. This room, while certainly nothing to be ashamed of, was not of that stature... but the inhabitants more than made up for that lack.  _I can't think of a gathering of so many powerful people since mother and father's wedding._  Politicians made up the hubs of conversation with military officers of at least seven nations moving between them. In such company servants would have been almost invisible... but here the drinks and canapés were being carried by members of Wolf's Dragoons, none of whom seemed particularly impressed by the egos on display.

"Amusing to be on the other side of fame for once," she murmured to Cassandra Allard-Liao, who was standing next to her. Kai's sister wasn't all that much younger than her brother or the princess, but her eagerness to complete her martial education and get involved in fighting against the Clans made Victoria feel like there was at least a decade between them. "I suppose that I should be grateful just to be invited here."

"At least you've made some sort of name for yourself and got invited in your own right," the younger girl observed. "I'm just here as a tag along to my parents."

Victoria chuckled. "I'm sure that's what I'm doing in the eyes of most people here."

"You beat the Jade Falcons at Somerset!"

"That's just one battle and I'm a mere battalion commander. Hardly noticeable among all this brass." Her eye caught the familiar red and black uniform of a Kell Hound moving through the crush. It wasn't one of her comrades from Somerset though – the tall, bearded officer's aura of strength and power would have marked out his identity even if she hadn't known him.

A pair of bureaucrats with prominently-displayed badges indicating their affiliation to House Marik backed away at the last moment when they spotted Victoria bearing down towards her honorary uncle. Morgan Kell turned slightly to observe what had scared them away and his face lit up. "Highness," he said in greeting. "As always, seeing you is a pleasure without equal."

"Literally true and gallant as well," Victoria laughed as he bent so she could kiss his cheek. "Though I'm sure that my mother's face would be more than equal in delighting you, as always."

He laughed at the rejoinder. "True, true. Melissa has a special place in my heart, I admit, though I assure you my sentiments are no less heartfelt."

"That notorious Kell charm will get you into trouble with Salome one day," warned Victoria playfully, and half turned to indicate her companion. "I don't recall – have you and Cassandra met before?"

Morgan took Cassandra's proffered hand and raised it to his lips. "Only once, here on Outreach as it happens," he said, showing no distraction at the thought of more peaceful days. "You may not remember though, for you were very young."

"I should say I do," Cassandra contradicted. "Although I think I saw more of Caitlin and -" She gulped, realising that she was on hazardous ground. "And Phelan."

The founder of the Kell Hounds nodded, outwardly unperturbed at mention of his lost son. The same could not be said of a wheelchair bound Kungsarme general passing behind them. As his head turned sharply towards them, Victoria spotted the long scar on the left side of his head and identified him as Tor Miraborg.  _The father of Rasalhague's dead heroine..._

Miraborg's aide, an aerospace fighter pilot from the same service to judge by her uniform, almost walked into the wheelchair as the crippled leader turned sharply. "You are Morgan Kell?" he demanded with a savage glare.

Morgan nodded confirmation.

"I am Tor Miraborg." Hatred and pain laced through the man's voice as he accused: "Your son murdered my daughter!"

The mercenary drew himself up as Victoria rested a hand on Cassandra's arm to prevent the impulsive teenager from jumping to Kell's defense. "Explain how my son, dead for a year and a half now, could have murdered your daughter," Morgan enquired politely, face impassive.

Red anger left the scar a pale line down Miraborg's face. "Your son came between Tyra and me! His influence drove her away and made her accept a position with the Rasalhague Drakons. My daughter died fighting the invaders!"

"Then your daughter and my son shared one last thing in their too brief lives," Morgan told the furious Jarl. "I received a holodisk from her not long ago, and she was kind enough to share with myself and my wife some remembrances of her times with Phelan..."

"She talked to you?" Miraborg whispered in a hollow voice, seeming to collapse inwards in disbelief. "She recorded a holodisk for  _you_! Why?"

 _Then she did not confide in you,_  Victoria thought but did not say.  _Did she believe that you would not listen? Or simply that there would be another time, never dreaming that the immortality of youth is an illusion?_   _No, she had lost Phelan. Tyra Miraborg would not have made that error by the time she left Gunzberg._

Morgan's answer was quiet and almost gentle. "Her disk came in response to one I had sent her. I will let you see her message, if you wish."

"No." The Iron Jarl seemed to shake off his moment of weakness, the fire returning to his face and words. "I want no part of your message. She stopped being my daughter the day she left Gunzberg." He turned his wheelchair away, but the pilot behind him did not follow.

"I'm Anika Janssen," she introduced herself somewhat awkwardly in the silence. "I was Tyra's wingmate... and her best friend." She shook her head, looking at Miraborg's back. "Ignore what he said. He's just a bitter old man."

"He's trapped," Victoria observed sympathetically. "He fears that facing the pain he feels, the guilt... it could break him. And the Iron Jarl can't break. Not when his nation needs him."

Surprise crossed Anika's face. "Maybe you're right," she said after a moment. "But he's still wrong. I knew Phelan and was there when he and Tyra met." She met Morgan's eyes. "You have nothing to be ashamed of in your son. The two of them were very good for each other."

"Thank you, Lojtnant," Morgan said, resting his hands on the blonde woman's shoulders. "I'm glad to know Phelan had friends." He smiled slightly when Cassandra cleared her throat. "Yes, yes. More friends then."

Cassandra shook Anika's hand. "My uncle's a Kell Hound," she explained. "I met Phelan when we were kids."

Anika nodded and then offered her hand to Victoria. "Did you also..." Then her face reddened slightly as she recognised the face above the AFFC dress blues.

"Phelan and I were at the Nagelring together," Victoria told her diplomatically. "Word got out about Tyra. I'm sorry for your loss."

The pilot swallowed hard. "Thank you. If you wouldn't mind, Colonel, I'd like to see that holodisk that she made. Tyra and I never really had a chance to say goodbye. She took her  _Shilone_  into the invader flagship, right into the bridge. She did more to stop the invasion than anyone else in the whole Kungsarme, but the Iron Jarl won't acknowledge her heroism."

Morgan smiled reassuringly. "I will have a copy of the disk to you by tomorrow morning. And thank you."

Conversation in the room died away and Victoria turned, having to stand on tiptoe to see over the crowd to where the leader of the Wolf's Dragoons was leading his command staff onto the dais at the far end of the hall. The legendary Jaime Wolf had been one of Victoria's childhood idols despite, or perhaps because of his own lack of height, and she could see in his body language the strength of purpose that had driven him to command the Dragoons through a twenty year circuit of the entire Inner Sphere, fighting for and against every one of the Successor States. She looked at the men and women behind him spotting Ngov amongst them and noticed one surprising absence.  _Where's the Black Widow? I can't see Natasha Kerensky missing a show like this one is shaping up into._

"Thank you all for responding to the summons that has brought us together here on Outreach," Wolf began. "Some of you must have found it strange and yet you have sensed that my reason was not frivolous. Rather, I wish to speak to you about a problem that faces all of us and whose true depth perhaps only the Dragoons can know."

He gestured towards a younger officer who stood close to him on the dais. "Before I begin, however, I would like to present my new second in command. Some of you may have known him as Major Darnell Winningham. His real name is MacKenzie Wolf, and he is my son. He will now replace Natasha Kerensky."

Whispered reactions rippled through the hall and Wolf gave them a moment to die, smoothing his gray hair. "As you all know, the Inner Sphere has been invaded in the last year by an enemy possessing BattleMechs of extraordinary power. Recently, the forces of the Federated Commonwealth and Draconis Combine have had modest successes against these invaders. After months of trial and error, they finally managed to hand the invaders defeats. Since then, the invaders, for all intents and purposes, have withdrawn into the shell of the worlds they conquered."

"It's because we kicked their butts!" someone shouted from the crowd. Victoria grimaced and shook her head while Cassandra joined in with the chorus of assent.  _Whoever said that wasn't on Somerset, not unless they're a fool_.

Clearly Wolf shared her appraisal, because his head was also shaking in dismissal of the notion. "Can you really believe that so implacable an enemy is cowed by minor defeats? They withdrew because one Rasalhague pilot sacrificed herself by smashing her Shilone into the invader's flagship. At the very least, she killed the invasion leader and devastated the command structure of the enemy forces. If she'd missed ten meters up or down, left or right, the invaders would still be marching inexorably forward."

He leant heavily on his podium, his eyes seeking out whoever had led that interruption. "If you are so naive as to think that two minor victories and a lucky stroke by a brave pilot could drive these invaders back, our chances for success are poor in our war against them."

"Our war?" Romano Liao latched onto those words with swift opportunism. The Chancellor's voice was unmistakeable – and Victoria had heard it in an earlier commotion when the woman tried to have a Dragoon announce her entrance to the room as if the veteran soldier was a mere herald. Now her voice was triumphant. "Of course! I knew it all along! You've just been waiting for our troops to take stock of these invaders. Now Wolf's Dragoons will stalk from their den and into the battle. Yours are the fiercest mercenaries in the Inner Sphere. With your help, we shall send these rimworld renegades running."

"They aren't renegades." A cool voice cut across the room before Wolf could respond with more than a hard stare and eyes turned towards the quarter of the room that Victoria stood in. It was only when Morgan looked down at her that Victoria realised who had spoken.  _Crap, so much for keeping my mouth shut and my ears open. Might as well be hung for sheep as for a goat, though._

She took a deep breath, connections falling into place between the facts that had been ascertained on Somerset from the prisoners there. "It's been almost three centuries since Aleksandr Kerensky led the armies of the Star League out into the Periphery and left us to tear each other to shreds in the Succession Wars. I won't even pretend to guess at what happened to them out there. But the Clans are their descendants. And I can assure you that the forces we've seen so far are a long way from being their full strength."

And now it was her gaze that met with Jaime Wolf's as the crowd parted. There was no contest here: the older man's presence would have drowned hers out in an instant. Instead she faced him with acceptance.  _I am in_ so _much trouble._

"But then... you already know that, Colonel Wolf."

And Jaime Wolf nodded slowly. "You are entirely correct, your Highness. And after Radstadt and after the death of their war leader, they'll come at us at full strength. They'll ask no quarter and grant none. Ladies and gentlemen, now begins what could easily be the last days of the Inner Sphere."

* * *

**Wolf's Dragoons General Headquarters, Outreach**

**Sarna March, Federated Commonwealth**

**15 January 3051**

"You're  _who_?"

Victoria was glad that Romano Liao's shouted response to Jaime Wolf's revelation commanded the attention of most of the room, leaving her unnoticed to glance around the Dragoon's Grand Council Chamber for any signs that this moment of truth was to be followed by a trap closing around them all.  _After all, it would be an unprecedented sweep of the Inner Sphere's leadership._  Family trees ran through her mind for a moment.  _If everyone in this room were to die, then Morgan would have to be regent to Peter, Tormano Liao would inherit the Confederation, probably reuniting it with St Ives, and Takashi Kurita would be left with a near-monk as an heir. God only knows what would happen to the League, as murky as their own succession is, but even they'd be better off than Rasalhague._

In front of her, Victoria could see her father's stiff shoulders and Melissa Steiner-Davion reaching for his hand. Clearly she wasn't the only one weighing the consequences if their trust in Jaime Wolf and his Dragoons was misplaced.

"By all the gods of heaven and earth, I can't believe it," Romano continued to protest.

The black uniformed mercenary leant heavily on the podium he was speaking from. "I thought, Madam Chancellor, that my statement was clear enough," Jaime Wolf told her, grim faced. "Let me try again. More than forty-five years ago, Wolf's Dragoons were sent by the Clans to determine the level of military preparedness of your states, those fragments of what had once been the Star League. Since that time, we have worked both for and against every one of the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere."

Haakon Magnusson, Prince of the Free Rasalhague Republic exploded out of his chair. "Then I have you to blame for the Clans half-devouring my nation! Was the Rasalhague Republic the choice target for the assault because we are a young nation or was it our reputation for disliking mercenaries?" Another strong personality in a room full of them, the silver-haired Prince nonetheless projected the full force of his emotions across the chamber.

 _Is everyone from Rasalhague given to such an explosive temper?_  "Unlikely," Victoria said aloud, her interjection this time carefully calculated.

"Impertinent child," Romano Liao snapped dismissively from her own seat across the hall, apparently recovered from her earlier shock. "You should have been whipped after your last outburst."

Victoria ignored her. "Interrogation of prisoners from Somerset makes it clear that the Clans care very little for who is in their path. I spoke to one of their leaders briefly and I found that they are intent upon carving the most direct path from their holdings in the Periphery to Terra regardless of who they have to fight to do so." She grimaced. "They're arrogant  _batards_ , but they have reason to be."

Wolf nodded, the movement drawing attention back to him. "Kommandant Steiner-Davion is once again correct. The Dragoons had nothing to do with the Clans' choice of targets. They are merely following the most direct route towards Terra and the Free Rasalhague Republic just happens to inhabit that slice of known space."

Magnusson met Wolf's gaze for a long moment and then seated himself again at his table, which was placed between that of the Draconis Combine and the aisle that cut through the chamber. His gaze flickered to Victoria for a moment, expression inscrutable.  _He's taking my measure. If the Republic survives, it will always be caught between the Combine and the Commonwealth – between myself and…_  Victoria's own gaze shifted to the representatives of House Kurita: Theodore Kurita sitting between his wife and his heir. Looking at Hohiro Kurita, Victoria had no difficulty picking out features he had in common with Franklin Sakamoto and she felt a jolt as their stares met for a moment.  _Formidable_ , she admitted, her hackles rising. A young woman standing behind the co-ordinator also eyed Victoria for a moment, before looking away dismissively.  _Another Kurita? Or perhaps Hohiro's wife. Theodore managed to conceal his own marriage for years so it's possible his son could have married without our knowledge._

Hanse Davion pushed back his chair and shot Victoria an approving look before looking over at Wolf. Age had paled the auburn of the First Prince's hair and slowed his reflexes slightly, but he remained in good health. "I take it from your words that you are no longer associated with the Clans."

_Straight to the heart of the matter, as ever father._

"Our last communication with the Clans occurred just after the Marik Civil War in 3014," Wolf explained, apparently relieved by the opening to discuss the matter. "At that time, our leader believed that a Clan invasion of the Inner Sphere was a distinct, if distant possibility. Even so, we were ordered to cease communicating information back to the Clans. Since then, we have had no contact with them until their recent broadcast informing us of the death of the ilKhan."

The Capellan Chancellor laughed derisively, "And we are to believe this, Colonel Wolf? What proof do you offer?"

 _How about the fact we're alive and not being murdered as the first step to decapitating the Inner Sphere?_  Victoria thought.  _Then again, you would probably be spared for the devastation your vitriol and madness would cause to any resistance against the Clans._

Romano's sister, Candace, was clearly thinking the same way. "I would point out, sister mine, that were Colonel Wolf still working for the Clans, we would all have probably died either en route to this meeting, if not before," Kai's mother pointed out from her own table next to that of the Federated Commonwealth.

The simple fact that the Duchess had been seated as the sovereign ruler had been enough to drive Romano to ranting once already today – she still claimed that St Ives was 'occupied' by the Federated Commonwealth and might even believe that. However, this time a slender young man touched her shoulder gently and the savage expression on his mother's face relaxed. "Fah," she waved Candace's words away. "You have so long clasped a viper to your breast that you cannot see Wolf for what he is."

Victoria didn't have to guess at the identity of the young man who had curbed Romano Liao's fury. Sun-Tzu Liao, the Chancellor's son and heir, was a handsome youth barely a year Victoria's junior. His eyes lacked the telltale wildness that marked his mother – and the sister who sat beside him – but the fact that he could exert any sort of control over Romano showed that he was extremely dangerous. Victoria had seen enough intelligence reports from the court on Sian to know that the political currents there were even more treacherous than the worst rumours suggested. Sun-Tzu did not show signs of his namesake's military acumen but there was no doubt that he must be a brilliant politician to have survived growing up in such an environment.

A glance to one side showed the flip side of Sun Tzu – Kai Allard-Liao and his twin sisters sat behind their mother. Kai had shown on Somerset that he did not lack for skill as a Mechwarrior – or as a leader.  _It would tear you apart to overthrow your aunt and her branch of House Liao_ , Victoria thought.  _But you would if you felt it necessary._

"My money's on Kai," Galen Cox murmured from where he stood behind Victoria, having noticed the attention she was directing towards the two scions of House Liao.

Victoria shrugged, only half-listening to Hanse Davion's own dismissal of collusion between the Dragoons and the Clans. "Depends on the battlefield. There's going to be trouble though."

"I would agree that the Dragoons had ample opportunity for treachery in this situation, but I would have more expected some of us to try to kill one another than for Colonel Wolf to do the job," Theodore Kurita pointed out from his own seat. Not having risen, the  _Gunji-no-Kanrei_  of the Draconis Combine steepled his fingers in front of him. His face gave nothing away, but given the unrelenting hatred of his father, Coordinator Takashi Kurita, for the Federated Commonwealth – and the two wars that Theodore had fought against Hanse Davion on behalf of his ungrateful father – it was likely that he was echoing Victoria's thoughts on a possible fratricidal struggle within House Liao but placing the venue within his own family. "If someone was trying to entrap us, he has succeeded, for here we are, all together, in a most extraordinary gathering. As nothing untoward has yet occurred, perhaps it would be more productive to assume we have not been betrayed."

"You are the last to speak, Captain-General," Wolf addressed his response to the only delegation not yet to have commented upon his revelation. "What are your thoughts? Are you in a trap or can the Dragoons be trusted?"

Like Theodore Kurita, Thomas Marik did not stand in order to respond. "I do not think, Colonel, that your questions are necessarily two sides of the same coin. I share the Gunji-no-Kanrei's view that worrying about a trap is immaterial at this point. The Dragoons have brought us here to discuss the Clan invasion and what we should do since they have called a halt to their advance. I think such a discussion would be a most valuable pursuit."

"For my part I am not one hundred percent inclined to trust any military force that admits it was once allied with the enemy. Forgive me, Colonel, but the people of the Free Worlds League well remember the Dragoons for their role in the war between my father and his brother Anton." The Captain-General's scarred face, the result of an assassin's bomb that had killed his predecessor, was a stark reminder of how brutal the League's internal conflicts could be.

Wolf nodded. "Your caution is understandable, Captain-General," he admitted. "By the way, we have set up your medical team in our infirmary and have provided them all the equipment you asked be made ready for their use."

"For his son?" Galen whispered discreetly to Victoria, eyes on the youngest person in the chamber. No more than five years old, Joshua Marik seemed unaware that he was might be the subject of discussion. Despite his pallid skin and sunken eyes he was sitting straight, only the idle movement of his legs betraying his distraction. His obvious ill-health was in stark contrast to the vibrant health of his half-sister Isis, seated beside him.

"Leukaemia," Victoria confirmed in a low voice. "Justin's agents in the League report he's reacting poorly to the chemotherapy."

Wolf sighed before continuing. "We are wasting precious time. The Inner Sphere faces the greatest military threat the Successor States have ever encountered, either individually or collectively." A control on his podium darkened the room and a holographic map of the Inner Sphere sprang into view in the centre of the room. Unlike the maps that Victoria was accustomed to, a crescent line cut off dozens of worlds on the coreward edge of the Inner Sphere. It took her only an instant to register its significance with regard to the Federated Commonwealth and then to the other affected states.

Her father and Justin Xiang-Allard exchanged nods, clearly having anticipated the losses suffered by the Combine and Rasalhague, the latter of which indeed been half-devoured as Magnusson stated. The other rulers seemed more surprised by the extent of the invasion.

Jaime Wolf put it into words: "As you can see, the situation is most grave. The Free Rasalhague Republic has lost its capital and over half its worlds. The invaders have also made substantial gains in the Lyran Commonwealth and the Draconis Combine. In less than a year, they have managed to take more worlds than changed hands in the Fourth Succession War, and the efforts to stop them have been less than effective."

Victoria grimaced at the dismissal of the fighting of Somerset, but had to concede the point:  _It was little more than a pinprick compared to the Clans' successes._

"My purpose in calling all of you here to propose that we unite to oppose these invaders. Only a concerted and joint effort can turn back the Clans. Otherwise, we face domination by an implacable foe. Just like the old saying, if the Successor States do not hang together, they will all hang separately."

 _It will take more than numbers to stop the Clans_ , thought Victoria, ignoring Romano's predictable derision for Wolf's advice.  _But they could hardly hurt._  She looked at the map, seeing not the political markings but instead superimposing from memory troop deployments.  _If we could strip our borders… well, those with the League and the Combine… we could deploy fifty more regiments to Tamar. Enough to grind them down, or to launch a substantial offensive. Even a truce with the Combine could free up significant troops and they would presumably gain just as greatly._

_The question is, will Theodore Kurita – or his father – see matters that way?_

* * *

**Wolf's Dragoons General Headquarters, Outreach**

**Sarna March, Federated Commonwealth**

**5 February 3051**

The conference room that the younger royalty had been left to wait in was a comfortable one, with a warm golden carpet and sunny yellow walls. Despite this, the windowless room had an unfriendly feeling as Victoria looked around it.

Hohiro Kurita and his aide Shin Yodama had set up camp in one corner and Sun-Tzu Liao had positioned himself in one of the many comfortably padded chairs with his back to a wall and an unspoken exclusion zone around himself. This left Ragnar Magnusson as the only one sitting at the conference table. Like the three AFFC mechwarriors and Cassandra Liao, the three princes and Yodama wore Dragoon-issue black jumpsuits, adding a sombre feel to the suspicions between them.

"If this is any omen, then any alliance formed here is going to be… interesting," Victoria observed, deliberately pitching her voice to make the apparently private comment clearly audible. Crossing to the table she picked a seat opposite Ragnar and sat down. Kai and Galen flanked her automatically, with Cassandra taking the seat beside her brother.

Victoria was on the brink of voicing a greeting to Ragnar when he reached across the table with a smile and offered her his hand. "Hello, I am Ragnar Magnusson. I have seen your picture before..."

"I can say the same of you," she said, accepting the hand and gripping it firmly. "Hopefully I don't fall too far short of the image they paint." Gesturing to either side, she introduced her companions: "Kai and Cassandra Allard-Liao, and this is Galen Cox."

"I am pleased to meet you," Ragnar greeted them all amiably. "I understand you have fought the Clans already?"

Cassandra shook her head while the other three nodded. "Galen, Kai and I were all on the Somerset mission," Victoria offered. "And before that Galen and I barely escaped them on Trell One. Not the same group that have been hitting your people though, but of the Jade Falcons are any guide then I'd imagine that the Wolves and the Ghost Bears are formidable foes."

Ragnar's expression slipped slightly. "Formidable is about the kindest thing I have heard them called."

"If I had a bottle of wine I'd propose a toast to Tyra Miraborg," noted Galen. "She might have bought us all the breathing space we need to regroup."

Victoria chuckled. "We toasted her with half the Triad's wine cellar," she admitted to Ragnar. "It's been a rocky year – we might even have raised our glasses in honour of Wolcott if we'd heard about it at the time," she added, looking over towards where Hohiro and his aide were watching her darkly.

The sound of the double doors to the conference room opening stilled any follow up on the conversation and Victoria glanced down the table to see Jaime Wolf's son Mackenzie and Christian Kell enter, both wearing the same unmarked jumpsuits that had been provided to their students. Unlike Galen, Kai and Yodama they hadn't left the jumpsuits only half zipped as was the current fashion. The Kell Hound Major leant against the wall by the door, letting his counterpart take centre stage as he moved to the head of the table.

"If the rest of you would like to come to the table then we can begin," Mackenzie phrased the order diplomatically but his tone left no doubt he expected obedience.

Sun-Tzu, nearest, took the seat at Mackenzie's right hand – the prize place, so to speak. Hohiro and his aide took seats beside Ragnar, the Kuritan prince opposite Kai and his aide between him and Sun Tzu. Victoria spotted something out of the corner of her eye as the junior officer took his seat – the edge of a tattoo covering the left side of his chest.  _Yakuza markings – one of Theodore's elusive Ghost Warriors. Unexpected… and very shrewd. Clearly the Kanrei does not intend his heir to grow up surrounded only by meatheaded samurai._

Wolf looked down the table, measuring each of them. "As you know, I am Mackenzie Wolf," he introduced himself pleasantly. "The man standing behind me is Christian Kell. Chris is one of the finest Mechwarriors in the Inner Sphere, and I should know." His lips parted in an arrogant smile. "I taught him everything he knows."

Planting his hands flat on the table he leant forwards. "Now he and I will become your instructors. Some of you have already seen action, but even with that, the total sum of experience of those seated at this table would not equal what the average Clan warrior goes through in his training. Furthermore he has superior equipment and knows how to use it. We must attempt to narrow the gulf between you and the average Clansman." Wolf's smile faded. "The question is, can we narrow it enough?" There was clear scepticism in his eyes.

Victoria grimaced. She'd realised even at Sudeten that it would take more than closing the gap in the calibre of the equipment used by the two sides to meet the Clans on equal terms, but it had been the only card she had to play.  _But he's implying that the gap in training is even larger. How is that_ possible _?_

"Preparing you to fight against the Clans will not be easy," Wolf continued. "Many of the lessons that you will need cannot simply be taught in a classroom, only by painful experience. Forget everything you already know about war or even life. From this point on, you are not who you were. Now you are ours to shape and mold as we see fit. And be assured: this is not a game. This training will be as real as we can make it... right down to the very real risk of death."

"Your training will commence immediately. Chris and I have to attend to a couple of details, but we'll be back. Until then, get to know one another, because you'll be working together for a long time." Without further ado, Wolf and Kell withdrew through the doors, which closed silently behind the pair.

Victoria's lips quirked. "'Get to know each other'. Easier said than done. Well I suppose that we all know each other's names."

"And of course your respective media's rave obediently about the valor of Prince Kurita and Princess Steiner-Davion," Sun-Tzu snorted derisively.

Brushing his hair back from his forehead, Galen cleared his throat. "With all due respect to all of you inheritors of power, I'd really appreciate it if we could avoid titles." He grinned at his counterpart from the DCMS. "I mean, how many people here would answer to 'Prince'? And if I have to use full titles every time I talk to someone, how will I have time to warn you to keep your head down in a firefight?"

The assembled royalty looked at each other and Victoria cracked a smile. "Contentious there, Galen. We can't just fall back on military rank, either. That would exclude half of us." She looked across the table at Hohiro, Ragnar and the sour-faced Sun-Tzu. "Gentlemen?"

Hohiro nodded slowly. "I see the logic," he agreed solemnly. "…Victoria."

"First name terms with the mongrel," Sun-Tzu murmured derisively, drawing every eye towards him.

Cassandra's lips parted to defend Victoria but the shorter woman shook her head slightly to deter her. "Precisely that, Prince Sun-Tzu Sheng-Liao," she answered, calling on years of patience in dealing with her younger siblings when the court was on Tharkad to keep her temper under control. Petulant as he was, Sun-Tzu had  _nothing_  on Peter at his most immature. "We have been gathered here to unite against the Clans. The question is: are you one of us?"

There was a long hesitation and then the Liao heir nodded stiffly. "Very well," he said grudgingly.

Victoria inclined her head graciously and then looked around the table. "So, this is 'getting to know each other'. What fun."

Most of those not from the Federated Commonwealth or St Ives frowned at the flippancy but Ragnar smiled, perhaps less stiff-necked as a result of his relative youth. "Is the next step small talk?" he piped up daringly. "I hope you will excuse me for saying this, P- Victoria, but your perfume does not suit you."

Cassandra blinked and leant across her brother to sniff the air. "You're wearing perfume, Vickie? Did your mother get to you or was it my sister?"

Victoria frowned, trying to identify the mentioned odor. "I'm not wearing perfume," she said, finally detecting a flowery scent.

It was Kai who identified it first, a fraction ahead of Victoria. "That's C-34!" he snapped and jumped to his feet, the chair he had sat on toppling backwards as he gently but firmly pushed his sister away so that he could drop to the floor and look under the table. Galen and Victoria also stood to give him room to work as he squirmed into the space to examine what he had found.

A moment later and Kai pushed himself back out. "I think there's three kilos of the stuff," he reported seriously. "According to the digital timer, we have ten minutes before it detonates."

Victoria had gone through no end of escape and evasion training as a child – a necessity given her birth status. No doubt most of those in the room had been through the same and if no scenario had been precisely of this nature, the lessons were still instinctual. "Check the door," she barked and reached for the discreet radio tucked into her belt.

Cassandra had taken barely two paces in response to that sharp command – Shin pulling Hohiro to his feet across the table – when a mocking laugh cut into the tension filled room, drawing attention to its originator, Sun-Tzu.

"Don't bother trying to leave. We are not meant to." His voice sank to a dramatic, frozen whisper. "Alive, that is."

Grimacing at the static that responded when she tried to transmit, Victoria clipped the radio back to her belt. "Please elaborate, Sun-Tzu," she requested courteously.  _Do you have foreknowledge of this? Is this a Maskirova bomb – would Romano Liao kill her son to get the rest of us? Maybe. Would_ Kali _Liao? Most certainly._

"Are you all fools?" Sun-Tzu demanded. "Can you not see that Wolf's Dragoons are playing with you? Jaime Wolf's admitted that his orders came from the Khan of the Clans was to test us. This is most certainly another test." His voice lowered dangerously. "Perhaps it is one that will end in the destruction of the new generation of leaders of the Successor States."

"The door is locked," he predicted confidently. "And there is no other egress from this room. Even the air conditioning vent is too small for Ragnar – or even the little princess Victoria. And if the estimate of three kilograms of C-34 is half-right, this whole level of Dragoon Headquarters will be destroyed."

Victoria didn't take her eyes off him. "Sound reasoning," she concurred. "'Zandra?"

"Locked," Kai's sister confirmed from the door. "And too solid for us to break easily."

"And what does your celestial wisdom suggest we do?" Hohiro demanded harshly of Sun-Tzu as Victoria crouched to look under the table, eyeing the grey package with the respect its destructive potential demanded.

"I'll back Kai's guess at how much C-34 we're dealing with," Victoria announced. "And Sun-Tzu's dead right about the damage it would do. If this is a test then it hardly matters. But if it isn't… the Dragoons do have enemies, and we can't assume that we are the only targets." She looked around and saw Shin Yodama standing by Hohiro, Cassandra rejoining Galen at her back as Kai wriggled back out from under the table, Ragnar as alone as Sun-Tzu. "So: disarm, escape… Nothing in here is sturdy enough to shelter us from that much C-34, the air pressure alone would be lethal in these close quarters."

"Both," Hohiro decided. "The table is in three parts – if we separate one end perhaps we can use it as a ram to break down the door. Shin, you have explosives experience, I believe?"

Yodama nodded confidently. "When I was seven, the  _Kuroi Kiri_  had me planting packets of C-34 anywhere I could to harass Commonwealth troops on Marfik."

"I qualified on underwater demolitions only two years ago," Kai offered. "And C-34 is what we used."

"I'll see what I can do with the door while you dismember the table," suggested Victoria to Hohiro. "I know a few things about locks."

Hohiro gave her a disbelieving look. "You're asking my permission?"

"It's your plan – and technically, you're the senior officer," Victoria pointed out calmly as she headed for the door. "It would be counterproductive to look like I was undercutting you."  _Not to mention that pulling military rank back into contention sidelines our albatross in the room._  Reaching into her jumpsuit pocket, she pulled out a multi-tool, one of the two or three items she tried to never be without, unaware of the surprise warring with intrigue on Hohiro's features.

Focusing upon the doors she ignored the conversation at the table. It only took a moment to verify Cassandra's information and expand upon it: the door was sturdy with a lock and hinges well protected from access from inside the room. Still, where there was a way… and conveniently they had been left with a tool. "Could someone bring me a little of the C-34?" she asked over her shoulder. "Not much – perhaps a coin's weight."

"Do it," Hohiro ordered.

Victoria didn't see who the order had been directed at but the petulant hiss was evidence enough.

"Your fingernails are the nearest thing we have to a sharp edge," the Kurita heir declared.

"No!" This time the protest came from Ragnar. "The metal reinforcing them is conductive. A cut in the wrong place could complete the circuit and trigger the detonator." There was a ripping sound and Victoria turned to see that Ragnar had torn at his jumpsuit, ripping away part of the plastic zip. "Use this instead."

"I don't need your help, pauper-prince," hissed Sun-Tzu venomously.

Hohiro's voice was harsh. "At least he's being useful, bastard."

"Oh you wound me, sir," Sun-Tzu mocked. "Which is worse in your tradition, Lord Kurita: to be born of unwed parents, or to be born of a union for which a mythical bloodline was created and one that so shames the participants that they dare not announce it to the world until their eldest child is five years old?"

Hohiro's fist lashed out towards the young Liao whose own movements indicated more martial training than had been thus far apparent. With quick reactions, Galen was able to catch hold of the flying fist while Cassandra tackled her cousin, securing him in an armlock. A moment later Galen's grip on the Kuritan heir was broken by Shin Yodama, but the yakuza allowed the AFFC mechwarrior to step back and position himself between the two would be combatants.

"Stop this, you shouldn't be fighting!" Ragnar put himself next to Galen.

"Let them kill each other," Victoria instructed in a cold voice. "Just get me the plastique so the rest of us can get out." The blunt dismissal of the two lives was enough to refocus the attention of the room on her and she smirked coldly. "If the heirs of the Combine and the Confederation want to rip each other apart it's fine by me. But I won't die for their pride."

"That one insulted my parents. No man says that and lives." Hohiro stabbed one finger accusingly towards Victoria.

Victoria snorted. "Then you're going to have to kill a lot of men. None of our parents are universally admired."

Her attention was drawn back towards the doors as she heard the lock click open. With reflexes tightened she grabbed the handle and yanked one of the two doors open to reveal a startled Mackenzie Wolf, who had apparently not anticipated the door knob being dragged from his hand and expected even less to be driven back a step by Victoria's shoulder impacting his breastbone.

"Bomb alert, evacuate the build..." Victoria's voice trailed off as she saw Jaime Wolf, Theodore Kurita and her father standing with Christian Kell behind Mackenzie. " _Merde_! Was this some lunatic team building exercise?"

"It was a test." The mercenary leader fielded the question, gesturing for the princess to step back and allow them to walk into the room. "A test that some of you failed."

"I had hoped to use you, the scions of the Inner Sphere's ruling Houses, as an example of how we might all cooperate to combat this threat. I had hoped that the rivalries that have sundered the Inner Sphere for three centuries had not yet sprouted or take sufficient root in you. But here you let petty jealousies reduce half of your number to behaving like children bickering in a sandlot."

Wolf turned his eyes upon Victoria. "You will learn to care about your allies, Kommandant, because you need them just as much as they need you. It will take more than a few soldiers thinking of the objective to defeat the Clans – certainly they are not going to roll over and play dead because you" and here his gaze flicked to Sun-Tzu "command them to do so."

Theodore Kurita bowed his head slightly towards Hanse Davion. "I apologise for my son's immaturity. He would do well to learn from your daughter's earlier grace over the matter of command."

"I would think more of that grace had she actually treated him with the respect due a commander," Hanse replied, waving off the apology. "It would seem that she has much to learn of diplomacy."

Mackenzie Wolf clapped his hands together and looked at the young people. "While your elders dissect your actions here, you will come with me. You have a long day of drills to look forward to and if you can't learn to fight together then you can look forward to dying fighting each other as well."

* * *

**Federated Commonwealth Compound, Outreach**

**Sarna March, Federated Commonwealth**

**5 February 3051**

Mackenzie Wolf might be full of himself, but he hadn't been joking about how hard he intended to push his young charges. Victoria was glad they were at least still in civilized surroundings so she could blow off the evening's formal reception indulge to in a long, hot shower and an evening of catching up with paperwork forwarded from Sudeten. In theory her battalion could get along without her, but deprived of herself and Galen the overflow of work wouldn't make either of them popular.

When she emerged from her suite's bathroom, her father was occupying the armchair and she was suspicious to note that the bowl of fries on the room service trolley wasn't heaped as high as usual. "You know, mother won't be happy if she knows you're breaking your diet."

"I've no idea what you mean." Hanse grinned tiredly. "I'm just here to talk to you about earlier."

"Lesson in diplomacy? Are you sure you don't have more urgent priorities?"

"You're my heir. More importantly you're my daughter. There may occasionally be more urgent matters, Victoria. But there will never be anything more important."

Victoria leant over to kiss his forehead before taking her own seat and moving her supper out of his reach.

"So where do we begin?"

"I'll start by saying you could have done worse. Your uncle Ian would probably have been the one punching Sun-Tzu, not that it would have accomplished anything. And you might have made a start on building bridges with Hohiro. It's hard to tell with Draconians sometimes."

"The crack about his parents won't have helped."

"No. Too much too soon I think." Hanse shrugged. "Theodore's being surprisingly reasonable so far so if you can keep his son's pride from getting pricked too hard, we may come out of things ahead. I suggest you build on the military side – he's no fool obviously and ceding him the lead makes you the clear second in command. Then all you have to do is get him to listen to you."

"Easier said than done, I expect."

"It always is. You've dealt with classmates you didn't like before. The late Ciro Ramirez springs to mind."

Victoria felt her face stiffen. "Late?" she asked.

Hanse met her blue eyes with his own. "Leftenant Ciro Oquendo y Ramirez swore the same oaths as an officer of the AFFC you did. None of you are children anymore and his parents' status couldn't shield him from the consequences of fighting for our enemies."

"I hadn't heard."

"I know. I had Morgan arrange to pull that report from your queue. It's better to hear that sort of news… personally."

"Dammit." She felt her eyes begin to water. "It's ridiculous, I didn't even like him."

The First Prince sighed. "I liked Michael Hasek-Davion once. We weren't friends and we burned all the bridges between us long before Ian died but even now, looking back, I can't say that it had to end the way it did. But once it became a matter of me or him… it narrowed things down considerably. And when someone tries to kill you, that has a way of making things personal."

"You're going to have to work with people you don't like. You're dealing with some of that in the AFFC, but in politics you have to work with people who don't even have that much impetus to work with you, which puts the burden of making them do that on your shoulders. We've got good people working for us but so did Ian Cameron and it took him twenty years to build the Star League."

Victoria blinked. "You're not trying for that, are you?"

"Not when arguments over who was First Lord would sink any co-operation faster than a falling aerospace fighter." Hanse leant back. "It's just the nearest parallel to getting all of our respective states to co-ordinate on a strategy."

"Maybe the Ares Convention would be closer." She took a bite from her burger. "I've been doing some thinking."

"I thought I felt some pain from the direction of my wallet."

She threw a wadded napkin at him. "About our strategy. Just reinforcing garrisons in front of the Clans isn't doing much except feeding the AFFC to them in bite-sized chunks. I know," she added, raising her hand – a more effective gesture if she didn't have the burger in it – "politically we have to protect those worlds."

"I think I see where you're going with this," her father agreed.

"Wolcott is the only world anyone's stopped them from taking. All credit to the Genyosha but it's not the sort of plan we can expect to work again. The Twelfth Donegal Guards managed to hold out for weeks though. If we pick the right units and the right worlds, that could pin several of their Clusters in position for a counter-attack, the same way we did on Somerset."

"And if they deploy a warship."

"Then dammit, we hit them the same way we did their battleship there! Just more so."

Hanse looked at his eldest daughter and then shrugged. "And you intend to be there."

"Wouldn't you?"

"When I was younger. Morgan was the same. And Ian never grew out of it. You'll need to step back someday and let other people do the fighting. That's… harder than it sounds."

Victoria leant back. "I can imagine."

"Believe me, you can't. And it's… oh, about a thousand times worse with your own children."

"Is that why you didn't push Kathy into going to an Academy?"

"You know she hates it when you call her that. Your mother and I decided that with you and Peter both so eager for military careers, it wouldn't matter too much if one or two of the others didn't."

"Even though it's a necessary qualification for the throne? What if one of us…"

"Dies?" Hanse rubbed his face. "I didn't expect another major war in my lifetime. After 3039 I didn't want to start another one and no one else was going to risk it. The risks of losing both of you – and it's likely Yvonne will want to follow in your footsteps – seemed acceptable. But now…"

"She's going to have to do the minimum at least. It's not as if she'll be eager to go to the frontlines and there are a lot of places in the AFFC's administration where she'd be a real asset."

"Would you like me to delegate explaining that to you?" her father suggested slyly.

"As a lesson in diplomacy? You're throwing me in at the deep -" Victoria cut off as the telephone rang. "At this time?"

"Victoria." It was Galen's voice. "I have a problem."


End file.
